"THOU 

[AT  TEACHEST 
ANOTHER 
TEACHEST  THOU  NOT 
THYSELF  ?» 


I 

4 
4 


1 


4 


IPEDSGOGICSL 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFOKWia 

AT 
LOS  ANGELES 


THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 
APPLIED  TO  EDUCATION 

BEING   A   SERIES    OF 

ESSAYS  APPLYING    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
JOHANN  FRIED  RICH  HERB  ART 


BY 


JOHN    ADAMS,  M.A.,  B.Sc. 

FELLOW  OF  THE  COLLEGE  OP  PRECEPTORS,  LONDON  ;  PRESIDENT  OP  THE 

EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTE  OP  SCOTLAND  ;  RECTOR  OF  THE  FREE 

CHURCH  TRAINING  COLLEGE,  ABERDEEN,  SCOTLAND 


"  I  say  nothing  against  Mr. 's  theory;  if  we  are 

to  have  one  regimen  for  all  minds,  his  seems  to  me  as 
good  as  any  other"  GEORGE  KLIOT 


BOSTON,    U.S.A. 

D.   C.   HEATH  &   CO.,   PUBLISHERS 
1897 


147263 


COPYRIGHT,  1897, 
BY  D.  C.   HEATH   &  CO. 


i  :/i  v 

•      *    *  •   • 

.*. 

"  *.   *  * 

'  •  *  •     '..'*.-  '.  '• 

'  .*     •    *  - 

:    *.  •*.  •; 

•  • 

•  ••  •*  • 

*•*•*    ••**•*    * 
•     •           •  v  • 

Typography  by  J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass. 
Prcsswork  by  C.  H.  Heintzemann,  Boston,  Mass. 


/OS  I 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEE  I 
IDOLA  SCHOLARUM        

CHAPTER  II 

REVIEW  OF  PSYCHOLOGIES 16 

C: 

CHAPTER  III 
OS 

THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY  .......      45 

CHAPTER   IV 
THE  THEORY  OF  INITIAL  EQUALITY 81 

CHAPTER  V 
FORMAL  EDUCATION 107 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  MEANING  OF  OBSERVATION 135 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE  LOGICAL  CONCEPT  AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL       .        .        .     163 

iii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE 

A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  OBGANON    ......     188 


CHAPTER  IX 
GRAPHIC  HYPOTHESES  .........    216 

CHAPTER  X 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  INTEREST        .......     247 

INDEX   .  281 


THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER   I 

IDOL  A  SCHOLARUM 

WHEN  Scott  wishes  to  give  a  reason  for  Reuben  But- 
ler's occasional  errors  of  judgment,  he  uses  the  pallia- 
tive parenthesis  :  "  for  the  man  was  mortal,  and  had  been 
a  schoolmaster." 

When  Bacon  seeks  to  discover  why  men  in  general 
are  so  liable  to  those  errors,  he  classifies  under  four 
head's  the  causes  which  predispose  men  to  go  astray: 
these  are  the  four  familiar  idola.  Since  this  word  is 
used  in  a  philosophical  connection,  it  goes  without  say- 
ing that  there  has  been  a  controversy  as  to  its  exact 
meaning.  Those  who  are  wrong  take  the  view  that  it 
means  the  ordinary  thing  set  up  to  be  worshipped,  a 
meaning  that  has  exposed  Bacon  to  severe  censure 
from  foreign  critics.  Hallam  sensibly  maintains  that 
the  word  retains  the  meaning  it  had  among  the  Greeks, 
and  stands  for  an  image  as  opposed  to  the  reality,  a 
false  appearance  as  contrasted  with  the  true  nature  of  a 
thing. 

Sir  Walter's  apology  for  Reuben  makes  an  uncon- 
scious but  very  satisfactory  classification  of  the  four 
idols :  the  idols  of  the  tribe,  of  the  den,  of  the  market- 


2  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

place,  of  the  theatre.  The  idols  of  the  tribe  correspond 
to  the  causes  that  led  Reuben  to  err  as  a  mortal ;  the 
remaining  three  may  be  held  responsible  for  his  blunders 
as  schoolmaster. 

For  the  idols  of  the  tribe  are  those  to  which  all  human 
beings  as  human  beings  are  subject,  such  as  the  tendency 
to  too  easy  generalizations,  and  to  neglect  contrary  in- 
stances. Against  those  idols  the  schoolmaster  must  fight 
like  an  ordinary  human  being,  a  mere  mortal. 

When  we  come  to  the  den,  we  begin  to  have  a  profes- 
sional interest.  "  The  idols  of  the  den  derive  their  ori- 
gin from  the  peculiar  nature  of  each  individual's  mind 
and  body,  and  also  from  education,  habit,  and  accident"  l 

The  "  mind  and  body  "  Reuben  shares  with  other  mor- 
tals ;  the  rest  applies  to  special  walks  in  life,  and  to  none 
more  pointedly  than  to  that  of  the  schoolmaster.  Most 
of  our  school-rooms  are  veritable  dens  into  which  the 
master  is  led  by  idols  born  of  his  peculiar  circumstances. 
"  Heraclitus  said  well  that  men  search  for  knowledge  in 
lesser  worlds,  and  not  in  the  greater  or  common  world."  2 
True  of  all  men,  this  is  particularly  true  of  the  school- 
master, who  is  apt  to  arrange  all  his  conceptions  to  suit 
the  limits  of  the  lesser  world  of  school,  instead  of  fit- 
ting them  to  the  greater  world  of  life.  If  he  be  a  High- 
School  Master,  a  false  quantity  acquires  a  ridiculous 
importance  in  his  ear ;  while  if  he  be  a  Primary-School 
Master,  parsing  and  analysis  become  the  chief  end  of 
man.  Things  which  in  the  greater  world  are  only 
means,  become  in  the  school-room  ends. 

It  is  almost  certain  that  Bacon  founded  this  class  of 
1  Novum  Organum,  Bk.  I.  63.  2  Ibid.,  42. 


IDOLA   SCHOLARUM  3 

idols  upon  the  figure  of  the  den  in  the  Republic.  As 
so  many  teachers  live  in  the  den,  it  is  well  to  consider 
Plato's  description :  — • 

"  Behold  human  beings  living  in  an  underground  den, 
which  has  a  mouth  open  towards  the  light,  and  reach- 
ing all  along  the  den :  here  they  have  been  from  their 
childhood,  and  have  their  legs  and  necks  chained  so 
that  they  cannot  move,  and  can  only  see  before  them, 
being  prevented  by  the  chains  from  turning  round  their 
heads.  Above  and  behind  them  a  fire  is  blazing  at  a 
distance,  and  between  the  fire  and  the  prisoners  there 
is  a  raised  way ;  and  you  will  see,  if  you  look,  a  low  wall 
built  along  the  way,  like  the  screen  which  marionette 
players  have  in  front  of  them,  over  which  they  show  the 
puppets. 

"  I  see. 

"  And  do  you  see,  I  said,  men  passing  along  the  wall 
carrying  all  sorts  of  vessels  and  statues,  and  figures 
of  animals  made  of  wood  and  stone  and  various  materials, 
which  appear  over  the  wall  ?  Some  of  them  are  talking, 
others  silent. 

"  You  have  shown  me  a  strange  image,  and  they  are 
strange  prisoners. 

"Like  ourselves,  I  replied;  and  they  see  only  their 
own  shadows,  or  the  shadows  of  one  another,  which  the 
fire  throws  on  the  opposite  wall  of  the  cave  ? 

"True,  he  said;  how  could  they  see  anything  but 
the  shadows  if  they  were  never  allowed  to  move  their 
heads ?  " l 

One  main  aim  of  this  book  is  to  induce  the  cave- 
1  Republic,  VII.  614  (Jowett's  Translation). 


4  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

dwellers  to  move  their  heads.  For  they  can  move  them 
if  only  they  will.  The  chains  around  their  necks  and 
legs  are  only  the  chains  of  habit  and  indifference.  So 
soon  as  the  prisoners  are  convinced  that  there  is  any- 
thing worth  seeing  behind  them,  there  will  be  little 
difficulty  in  turning  round.  The  chains  are  self-im- 
posed. 

It  is  this  unwillingness  to  turn  round  and  look  about 
them  that  marks  the  true  cave-dweller.  Many  teachers 
are  content  to  play  with  the  little  black  puppets  of  their 
school  world,  and  sturdily  refuse  to  look  beyond  the 
school  walls,  or  even  to  admit  that  there  is  a  beyond. 

It  is  reported  that,  in  one  of  his  rare  lapses  from 
massive  common  sense,  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  every- 
thing that  can  be  known  about  education  has  been 
known  long  ago.  To  the  teachers  who  to-day  take  a 
pride  in  repeating  the  saying,  a  qualified  assent  must  be 
yielded.  Certainly  all  that  they  know  about  education 
has  been  known  long  ago. 

Truth  to  tell,  teachers  trouble  themselves  very  little 
about  theories.  So  far  as  practical  work  is  concerned, 
there  is  no  trade  or  profession  that  stands  less  in  need 
of  exhortation  under  the  text :  "  Not  slothful  in  busi- 
ness ;  "  yet  no  occupation,  claiming  the  rank  of  a  pro- 
fession, shows  less  interest  in  the  theoretical  aspects  of 
its  work. 

At  first  sight  there  is  an  air  of  modesty  about  the 
man  who  disclaims  all  pretensions  to  be  an  "  education- 
ist," who  proudly  proclaims  that  he  is  quite  content  to 
be  a  plain  schoolmaster,  whose  business  is  to  teach  and 
not  to  talk  about  teaching.  "  Give  me  a  class,"  says  he, 


IDOLA  SCHOLAR0M  5 

"  and  I  shall  teach  it.  Do  not  trouble  me  about  the 
science  of  education.  There  is  no  such  science.  Edu- 
cation is  purely  empirical." 

In  the  dictionary,  empirical  begins  with  the  meaning 
"  depending  upon  experience,  or  one's  own  observation," 
but  it  soon  works  its  way  down  to  "  quack." 

Closer  examination  shows  up  this  modest  school- 
master as  an  arrogant  and  intolerant  empiric  —  empiric 
is  prettier  than  the  other  word.  His  position  is  summed 
up  in  whatever  conclusion  you  may  see  your  way  to 
supply  to  the  premises  :  "  A  true  schoolmaster  is  born, 
not  made.  I  do  not  require  making." 

There  is  a  small  and  diminishing  number  of  very 
superior  teaching  persons  who  sniff  at  normal  colleges, 
and  do  not  respect  even  university  professors  of  edu- 
cation. Such  teachers  do  not  require  the  practical  work 
of  the  colleges,  and  despise  the  theories  of  the  universi- 
ties. Innate  ideas  have  in  their  day  been  regarded  as 
something  very  wonderful,  and  innate  faculties  have 
aroused  even  more  awe.  Both  must  sink  into  com- 
parative insignificance  compared  with  this  marvel  of 
innate  professions.  The  knowledge  of  education  pos- 
sessed by  the  superior  ones,  reached  their  soul  by  no 
earthly  inlet.  They  must  have  brought  it,  after  the 
Platonic  fashion,  from  a  former  and  a  better  world. 
Professor  Laurie  earned  the  gratitude  of  all  hard-work- 
ing and  modest  teachers  on  the  day  that  he  entitled 
those  others :  "  TEACHERS  BY  THE  GRACE  OF  GOD." 

Yet  to  abuse  those  divinely  certificated  men  here  is 
to  do  a  mean  thing :  to  talk  evil  of  them  behind  their 
backs ;  for  none  of  them  can  be  expected  so  far  to  for- 


6  THE   HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

get  himself  as  to  read  these  pages.  Such  teachers  are 
content  to  practise  an  art  the  principles  of  which  they 
do  not  understand,  and  they  haughtily  resent  any  at- 
tempt to  enlighten  them.  They  are  poor  prisoners  in 
the  cave. 

Leaving  those  few  willing  dwellers  in  darkness,  let 
us  look  at  the  case  of  the  many  honest  and  earnest 
teachers  who  really  do  desire  to  get  light  upon  their 
subjects  and  methods.  At  first  sight  there  seems  little 
to  encourage  such  inquirers  to  prosecute  their  studies 
in  the  literature  of  their  profession.  Roughly  speaking, 
that  literature  falls  into  two  great  sections.  The  first 
deals  with  what  is  usually  known  as  school  manage- 
ment, and  is  very  valuable  and  indeed  essential  to 
young  and  raw  teachers.  But  those  of  some  experience 
and  practical  skill  cannot  be  expected  to  content  them- 
selves with  mere  directions  how  to  teach  this  subject  or 
that.  They  therefore  turn  to  the  second  great  section, 
in  which  the  books  profess  to  deal  with  education  as  a 
science,  and  to  lay  down  the  principles  on  which  the 
mere  methods  of  school  management  are  founded. 

It  is  here  that  discontent  arises.  In  the  region  of 
educational  theory  there  is  an  intolerable  lack  of  una- 
nimity. Each  new  school  brings  its  new  theory,  which 
contradicts  all  other  theories.  If  one  takes  up  an  ele- 
mentary historical  sketch  like  Oscar  Browning's  Edu- 
cational Theories,  one  finds  the  change  from  theory  to 
theory  so  sudden  as  to  recall  nothing  so  much  as  the 
bewildering  change  of  subject  in  reading  the  dictionary. 

Nor  is  any  very  serious  effort  made  to  reconcile  con- 
flicting opinions.  On  page  312  of  Quick's  Educational 


IDOLA   SCHOLAEUM  7 

Reformers,  we  find  in  a  foot-note  two  fables,  one  by 
Pestalozzi  about  two  colts,  the  other  by  Rousseau  about 
two  dogs.  The  first  fable  proves  that  the  colts,  origi- 
nally "as  like  as  two  eggs,"  became  widely  different 
through  nothing  but  education.  The  second  fable 
shows  that  the  vast  differences  that  ultimately  mark  the 
two  dogs  of  the  same  litter  who  have  been  "treated 
precisely  alike  "  are  the  direct  results  of  nothing  but  a 
difference  of  temperament.  No  comment  whatever  is 
made  upon  the  contradiction  involved,  except  that 
Pestalozzi's  fable  is  "  a  fit  companion  "  to  Rousseau's. 
Like  a  nineteenth-century  Herodotus  Mr.  Quick  tells 
the  tale  as  'twas  told  to  him,  and  passes  on  to  some- 
thing else. 

Almost  every  characteristic  utterance  of  a  great  edu- 
cationist can  be  matched  by  its  contradiction  in  the 
works  of  some  other  great  educationist.  Nor  does  this 
state  of  affairs  mark  the  dark  ages  of  our  subject.  At 
the  present  moment  our  professional  organs  teem  with 
quarrels  about  the  merits  of  conflicting  systems  of 
teaching  various  subjects,  while  the  two  most  powerful 
general  systems  of  education  —  the  Froebelian  and  the 
Herbartian  —  are  built  upon  opposing  philosophical 
principles. 

Little  wonder,  then,  that  the  teacher,  tired  of  endless 
quarrels  with  no  helpful  outcome,  should  become  dis- 
gusted with  theories  and  turn  his  face  to  the  wall  of  the 
cave,  and  be  content  to  be  called  names.  He  thinks  that 
there  are  either  no  general  truths,  no  science  of  educa- 
tion, or  that  such  general  truths  are  not  yet  available. 

This  ignorance  is  not  to  be  overcome  by  supplying 


8  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

yet  bigger  and  more  formidable  treatises  on  the  Science 
of  Education.  For  literary  schoolmasters,  more  than 
any  other  class,  have  learnt  the  art  of  being  dull  by 
saying  all  that  can  be  said  on  a  given  subject.  It  is 
because  we  live  so  much  in  the  den  that  Littre"  with 
the  fine  calm  that  nothing  short  of  dictionary-making 
can  give,  dares  to  write  : 

"  PSdant,  a  term  of  contempt,  one  who  teaches  chil- 
dren." 

Pedantry  is  indeed  our  besetting  sin,  and  nowhere 
does  it  receive  a  better  illustration  than  in  our  love 
of  completeness.  A  former  Professor  of  Theology  at 
St.  Andrews  was  asked  how  he  treated  his  subject. 
The  true  spirit  of  the  complete  pedagogue  is  crystallized 
in  the  answer: 

"  I  just  begin  wi'  infeenity,  and  go  right  on." 

Our  present  lust  for  a  professional  literature  is  aggra- 
vating our  naturally  evil  tendency.  Education  has  not 
as  yet  a  very  secure  place  among  the  learned  profes- 
sions, and  writers  on  the  subject  are  tempted  to  justify 
their  claims  by  the  questionable  method  of  making 
their  books  as  formal  and  technical  as  possible.  One 
result  is  that  ordinary  practical  teachers  are  repelled 
by  the  unnecessary  difficulty  and  dulness  of  books 
which  it  would  be  greatly  to  their  advantage  to  read.1 

1  This  seems  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  apologize  to  American  read- 
ers for  my  use  of  illustrations  drawn  from  my  experience  of  Scottish 
and  English  education.  To  use  any  other  illustrations  would  be  to 
stultify  myself.  It  would  be  a  sorry  commentary  on  the  theory  of 
apperception  in  teaching  to  quit  the  masses  with  which  I  am  familiar 
in  order  to  dabble  in  others  over  which  I  have  no  control.  A  Scots- 
man's masses  in  respect  of  American  affairs,  however  wide  his  inter- 


IDOLA    SCHOLARUM  9 

In  the  following  pages  an  attempt  is  made  to  treat  the 
Herbartian  Psychology  in  an  interesting  way,  and  to 
make  some  practical  applications  to  the  work  of  teaching. 
No  doubt  it  will  not  be  possible  to  make  everything 
simple  and  easy,  but  it  is  hoped  that  no  unnecessary 
difficulty  will  be  added  to  the  text  in  the  interests  of 
a  pedantic  completeness,  or  of  an  appearance  of  pro- 
fundity. Philosophy  has  no  longer  any  need  to  be 
brought  from  the  clouds  to  the  market-place.  That 
work  has  been  already  well  done.  The  humbler  task 
remains  to  introduce  it  to  the  den. 

The  third  class  of  idols,  those  of  the  market-place, 
arise  from  the  associations  of  words  and  ideas.  Bacon 
ranks  them  as  the  most  troublesome  of  all.  "  For," 
says  he,  "  men  imagine  that  their  reason  governs  words, 
whilst,  in  fact,  words  react  upon  the  understanding." 1 
Nowhere  is  this  better  seen  than  in  works  upon  Educa- 
tion. It  seems  almost  impossible  in  works  of  this  class 
to  speak  perfectly  plainly.  The  discourse  has  hardly 
begun  when  we  find  that  we  have  introduced  a  meta- 
phor. After  that  we  are  lost.  Of  a  surety  this  meta- 
phor will  "react  upon  the  understanding."  There  is 
no  more  tyrannical  idol  in  the  whole  market-place  than 
a  metaphor  that  has  taken  the  bit  between  its  teeth. 
A  metaphor  shows  up  a  system  as  a  deed  shows  up  a 
man.  By  their  metaphors  shall  ye  know  them. 

ests  and  extensive  his  reading,  can  never  compete  with  masses  native 
to  the  western  shores  of  the  Atlantic.     American  readers  will  there- 
fore, I  trust,  pardon  me,  and  translate,  as  only  they  can,  my  masses 
in  terms  of  their  own. 
1  Nov.  Org.,  Bk.  I.  59. 


10  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

Mr.  Stelliug,  in  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,1  "  concluded 
that  Tom's  brain,  being  peculiarly  impervious  to  etymol- 
ogy and  demonstration,  was  peculiarly  in  need  of  being 
ploughed  and  harrowed  by  these  patent  implements.  It 
was  his  favourite  metaphor,  that  the  classics  and  geom- 
etry constituted  that  culture  of  the  mind  which  pre- 
pared it  for  the  reception  of  any  subsequent  crop." 

In  criticising  this  view,  George  Eliot  proceeds  to  say : 
"  I  only  know  it  turned  out  as  uncomfortably  for  Tom 
Tulliver  as  if  he  had  been  plied  with  cheese  in  order 
to  remedy  a  gastric  weakness  which  prevented  him  from 
digesting  it.  It  is  astonishing  what  a  different  result 
one  gets  by  changing  the  metaphor !  Once  call  the 
brain  an  intellectual  stomach,  and  one's  ingenious  con- 
ception of  the  classics  and  geometry  as  ploughs  and 
harrows  seems  to  settle  nothing.  But  then  it  is  open 
to  someone  else  to  follow  great  authorities,  and  call  the 
mind  a  sheet  of  white  paper  or  a  mirror,  in  which  case 
one's  knowledge  of  the  digestive  process  becomes  quite 
irrelevant.  It  was  doubtless  an  ingenious  idea  to  call 
the  camel  the  ship  of  the  desert,  but  it  would  hardly 
lead  one  far  in  training  that  useful  beast.  O  Aristotle ! 
If  you  had  had  the  advantage  of  being  'the  freshest 
modern,'  instead  of  the  greatest  ancient,  would  you  not 
have  mingled  your  praise  of  metaphorical  speech,  as  a 
sign  of  high  intelligence,  with  a  lamentation  that  intel- 
ligence so  rarely  shows  itself  in  speech  without  meta- 
phor —  that  we  can  so  seldom  declare  what  a  thing  is, 
except  by  saying  it  is  something  else  ?  " 

When  the  above  was  written,  the  greatest  metaphor 
1  Page  126,  Stereotyped  Edition. 


IDOLA   SCHOLAKUM  11 

of  all,  the  truest  and  the  best,  but  still  a  metaphor,  had 
been  long  ago  made,  but  was  only  as  yet  working  its 
way  slowly  towards  the  conquest  of  the  English  mind. 
The  plant  metaphor  is  generally  regarded  as  beginning 
with  Pestalozzi,1  and  holding  an  after  course  through 
Froebel  and  his  followers  till  now  it  holds  the  vast 
majority  of  our  profession  in  its  relentless  grip.  Before 
Pestalozzi  was  heard  of,  wiseacres  told  each  other  that 
"  As  the  twig  is  bent,  so  is  the  tree  inclined,"  but  with 
him  the  simile  passed  into  a  metaphor,  and  embodied 
a  way  of  regarding  childhood  that  has  become  so  wide- 
spread that  its  very  opponents  in  attacking  it  are  com- 
pelled to  use  its  vocabulary. 

Under  all  the  popular  words  in  our  school-manage- 
ment books,  words  dear  to  the  heart  of  every  ambitious 
young  teacher,  there  lurks  the  inevitable  metaphor  with 
its  underlying  theory.  Many  of  those  words  imply 
totally  different  systems,  yet  they  are  all  used  in  the 
most  friendly  way  on  the  same  page.  It  is  only  because 
of  the  power  of  the  idols  of  the  market-place  that  this 
happy  family  arrangement  can  be  maintained.  Faculty 
and  capacity  are  used  as  interchangeable  terms,  though 
they  represent  psychological  views  that  are  poles  asun- 
der. Elicit  and  instruct,  teach  and  educate,  train  and 
inform,  all  hide  different  and  indeed  contradictory  views 
of  the  function  of  the  teacher. 

So  much  for  the  market-place  idols  in  their  relation 
to  the  teacher's  views  on  his  profession.  Their  baneful 
influence  is  felt  even  more  powerfully  in  the  communi- 
cation between  master  and  pupil.  But  as  the  following 
1  But  see  Coineiiius,  The  Great  Didactic,  V.  5. 


12  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

chapters  are  largely  taken  up  with  the  effects  of  those 
idols,  we  may  in  the  meantime  pass  on  to  the  fourth 
class. 

"The  idols  of  the  theatre  are  not  innate,  nor  do  they 
introduce  themselves  secretly  into  the  understanding, 
but  they  are  manifestly  instilled  and  cherished  by  the 
fiction  of  theories  and  depraved  rules  of  demonstra- 
tion."1 Here  again  the  schoolmaster  is  liable  to  fall 
an  easy  prey  to  the  idols.  Even  the  cave-dweller  who 
has  rejected  the  popular  guides  to  the  theoretical  parts 
of  his  profession  is  not  without  his  theories,  and  he  is 
more  than  human  if  he  keeps  them  from  affecting  his 
work,  by  modifying  all  the  facts  of  school  life  and  ex- 
perience to  fit  into  them.  According  as  he  is  a  Calvin- 
ist  or  a  naturalist  will  he  find  his  pupils  little  demons 
or  little  angels.  If  he  be  an  idealist,  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  school-room  will  be  made  to  fit  into  the  formulae 
of  Kant  and  Hegel ;  if  a  sensationalist  (a  much  more 
likely  supposition),  the  children  become  so  many  recep- 
tacles for  containing  the  knowledge  which  may  be 
poured  into  them  through  the  senses. 

Consider  the  hard  lot  of  the  teacher.  If  he  declines 
to  meddle  with  theory  at  all,  he  is  condemned  to  the 
den.  If  he  seeks  relief  in  figurative  language,  he  is 
threatened  with  the  idols  of  the  market-place.  If  he 
accepts  a  definite  theory,  he  is  charged  with  yielding  to 
the  charms  of  the  theatrical  idols.  The  only  hope  of 
escape  lies  in  common  sense.  A  man  must  know  all  the 
theories  in  order  to  choose  among  them.  He  must  be 
clear  in  his  use  of  terms  lest  he  mislead  himself,  not  to 
i  Nov.  Orflr.,Bk.  I.  61. 


IDOL  A   SCHOLARUM  13 

speak  of  others.  Finally,  he  must  make  such  use  of  the 
theory  he  chooses  as  his  experience  and  intelligence 
direct.  What  follows,  for  example,  is  based  on  the 
general  principles  that  are  associated  with  the  name  of 
Herbart.  It  does  not  follow  that  the  writer  is  a  Her- 
bartian.  It  is  enough  that  he  finds  this  system  fits 
most  readily  into  his  own  experience,  and  seems  to 
him  best  suited  to  explain  educational  facts  to  others. 
Perhaps  the  best  way  to  put  it  is  to  say  that  the  follow- 
ing essays  are  written  with  a  Herbartian  bias,  the  sub- 
stantive being  used  in  its  purely  mechanical  sense,  and 
without  that  moral  taint  that  usually  accompanies  it. 

It  may  be  objected  that  such  a  plan  is  a  clear  tempt- 
ing of  providence.  To  set  out  with  a  definite  theory, 
and  seek  to  apply  it  to  a  profession,  seems  very  like  a 
deliberate  surrender  to  the  idols  of  the  theatre.  One 
is  at  least  forewarned,  and  on  turning  to  Bacon  for 
further  information,  one  finds  that  the  theatrical  idols 
lead  to  error  in  three  different  directions.  We  are 
offered  our  choice  of  wandering  into  sophistic  errors 
with  Aristotle,  empirical  errors  with  Gilbert,  or  super- 
stitious errors  with  people  in  general.  On  the  whole,  I 
lean  towards  the  evil  ways  of  Aristotle.  If  we  must  go 
wrong,  let  us  at  least  err  in  good  company. 

Yet  I  am  not  without  hope  that  I  may  not  err  beyond 
measure.  To  begin  with,  there  is  little  fear  of  the 
rabies  biographica.  I  am  a  Herbartian  only  to  the 
extent  that  I  cannot  help  it.  The  metaphysical  basis 
of  the  Psychology  that  these  pages  seek  to  apply  is  no 
concern  of  mine,  and  is  only  introduced  into  the  text  so 
far  as  to  make  the  system  a  consistent  and  intelligible 


14  THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

whole.  Herbartianism  has  weaknesses,  and  some  of  its 
rivals  have  points  of  superiority  of  which  I  shall  not 
fail  to  avail  myself,  yet  as  it  seems  to  me  the  best 
system  for  application  to  education,  I  prefer  to  adopt  it 
as  a  whole,  rather  than  to  form  a  patchwork  of  the  best 
of  several  incongruous  systems.  While  thus  avoiding 
the  dangers  of  eclecticism,  I  no  doubt  increase  the  risk  of 
serious  error  in  the  direction  of  Aristotelian  sophism. 
Against  that  error  I  must  struggle  as  best  I  can.  It 
may  be  impossible  to  escape  altogether,  but  if  I  contrive 
to  keep  the  average  of  error  low,  and  to  confine  it  pretty 
much  to  one  groove,  I  shall  be  well  content. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  purpose  of  these  pages  to  give  an 
exhaustive  analysis  of  the  various  kinds  of  idols.  Such 
an  attempt  would  but  supply  a  brilliant  illustration  of 
one  of  them.  To  the  intelligence  of  the  reader  must  be 
left  the  classification  of  the  idols  as  they  are  called  up 
for  examination  in  succeeding  chapters,  or  as  they  come 
up  in  the  text  uncalled  for  and  unsuspected.  For  one 
result  of  considering  those  terrible  idols  is  the  firm  con- 
viction that  absolute  philosophic  truth  is  as  unattaina- 
ble as  absolute  moral  rectitude.  In  treating  of  the  idols 
of  the  schools,  then,  I  cannot  hope  to  confine  myself  to 
a  mere  attack,  as  the  manner  of  educational  reformers 
is.  In  unmasking  the  idols  of  others,  I  am  constrained 
to  yield  to  my  own.  In  extenuation  I  need  only  say 
that  my  idols  are  not  nearly  so  ugly  or  dangerous  as 
those  others. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  concluding  remark  will 
draw  out  the  mild  opposition  it  challenges.  For  so 
soon  as  we  have  reached  the  point  of  comparing  idols, 


IDOLA   SCHOLARUM  15 

we  are  in  hopeful  case.  We  cannot  compare  things  till 
we  have  at  least  stood  outside  of  them,  if  not  risen 
above  them.  Your  only  really  hopeless  man  is  he  who 
denies  that  there  are  idols,  or  at  any  rate  that  he  has 
idols.  He  sits  in  his  den  enjoying  his  shadows,  and  is 
terrible  in  his  scorn  of  all  who  pretend  that  there  is 
something  in  the  universe  more  real  than  those  darling 
black  puppets.  Almost  any  means  is  justifiable  that 
shall  rouse  this  modern  cave-dweller  to  a  sense  of  his 
deplorable  state.  If  he  can  be  roused  to  defend  his 
idols,  there  is  every  probability  that  in  the  clash  of 
arms  those  idols  may  show  themselves  to  be  what  they 
are. 

As  for  the  Grace-of-God  teachers,  they  are  beyond 
hope. 


CHAPTER  II 

REVIEW   OF   PSYCHOLOGIES 

"VERBS  of  teaching  govern  two  accusatives,  one  of 
the  person,  another  of  the  thing ;  as,  Magister  Johannem 
Latinam  docuit  —  the  master  taught  John  Latin." 

Thus  far  the  Latin  rudiments.  When  the  master 
seeks  to  apply  the  principle  in  real  life,  he  finds  that  he 
can  manage  his  double  accusative  only  by  the  posses- 
sion of  a  double  knowledge  :  he  must  know  Latin  ;  and 
he  must  know  John.  Not  so  long  ago  it  was  considered 
enough  to  know  Latin.  Nobody  denies  that  the  master 
must  know  his  subject  —  nobody  but  Jacotot,  that  is, 
for  he  maintains  that  the  master  need  not  know  even 
that.1  But  while  all  the  world  agrees  to  treat  the 
French  educationist  as  a  crack-brained  theorist  for  his 
gallant  attempt  to  free  the  master  from  the  drudgery  of 
learning  what  he  has  afterwards  to  teach,  no  outcry  was 
raised  at  the  neglect  of  John.  To  know  Latin  was  re- 
garded as  all-sufficient.  John  was  either  taken  for 
granted  or  held  to  be  not  worth  knowing. 

1  Enseignement  Universel :  De  VArithmetique,  p.  212,  in  all  the 
glory  of  emphatic  capitals :  "  Je  vous  ai  de"ja  dit  qu'on  enseigne  ce 
qu'on  ne  sail  point  quand  on  le  veut."  Then  on  p.  178,  De  la  Ge- 
ographic, he  haughtily  proclaims :  "  Je  puis  enseigner  le  hollandais, 
que  j1  ignore,  plus  rapidement  que  tous  les  grammairiens  du  inonde 
re"unis." 

16 


REVIEW   OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  17 

The  outcry  has  at  last  come.  Popular  belief  and 
practice  are  changing,  and  John  is  entering  upon  a 
period  in  which  he  is  likely  to  have  a  somewhat  un- 
comfortable share  of  the  master's  attention.  The  person 
is  for  the  first  time  coming  to  his  proper  place  before  his 
fellow-accusative,  the  thing. 

Unfortunately,  the  science  that  looks  after  John 
labours  under  a  formidable  name  and  a  bad  reputation. 
The  very  look  of  the  word  Psychology,  with  its  super- 
fluous P,  has  done  something  to  render  it  unpopular. 
Used  as  an  adjective,  it  is  now  enough  of  itself  to  con- 
demn any  novel.  It  suggests  everything  that  is  dull 
and  unreadable.  Behind  it  all,  too,  there  is  an  under- 
lying idea  of  a  pompous  assumption  of  special  knowledge. 
To  begin  with,  there  is  a  difficulty  in  knowing  exactly 
what  it  is.  The  very  definition  of  the  science  is  a  battle- 
ground for  opposing  schools,  with  whose  pretensions  the 
teacher  has  little  concern.  He  is  a  man  of  peace :  it  is 
not  his  place  to  fight.  It  is  true  that  he  is  said  to  have  won 
Gravelotte,  but  he  did  it  by  proxy.  By  proxy,  too,  he 
prefers  to  do  his  fighting  about  Psychology.  It  is  not  of 
vital  importance  to  him  to  know  the  exact  meaning  of 
the  study.  His  aim  as  a  professional  man  is  not  to  know 
Psychology,  but  to  know  John.  From  the  teacher's  point 
of  view,  Psychology  is  the  study  of  John. 

One  has  not  to  go  far  in  this  study  till  one  discovers 
that  John  has  a  double  personality :  he  is  a  soul  and 
he  is  a  body.  Those  two  are  combined  in  the  most 
intimate,  yet  most  exasperatingly  complicated  way. 
No  analysis,  however  subtle,  can  accurately  mark  off  the 
precise  limits  of  John's  body  and  soul.  Yet  in  the 


18  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

broad  common-sense  way  in  which  the  words  are  used 
in  every-day  speech  there  is  little  danger  of  any  mis- 
understanding. A  man  who  cannot  clearly  distinguish 
right  away  the  different  meanings  of  soul  and  body,  is 
not  likely  to  profit  much  by  the  subtleties  of  Psychol- 
ogy. To  make  matters  perfectly  clear,  let  it  be  once 
for  all  granted  that  this  word  soul  is  not  here  used  in 
its  narrow  theological  meaning,  but  is  held  to  include 
all  the  higher  parts  of  John's  nature,  —  his  knowings, 
feelings,  wishings,  and  willings.  So  far  as  the  body  is 
treated  as  a  machine,  we  are  working  with  Physiology; 
as  soon  as  the  element  of  consciousness  comes  in,  we 
have  passed  into  Psychology.  Naturally  the  next  ques- 
tion is :  What  is  consciousness  ?  This  is  a  question  to 
be  given  up.  No  man  can  tell  another  what  conscious- 
ness is,  which  is  the  less  to  be  regretted  that  everybody 
knows  without  asking.  Most  people  treat  conscious- 
ness as  a  rather  important  thing,  but  in  Psychology  one 
is  prepared  for  differences  of  opinion,  and  so  is  not  sur- 
prised when  Huxley  in  his  own  airy  way  tells  us  that 
consciousness  is  a  mere  by-product,  a  sort  of  accident, 
something  that  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  working  of 
the  brain  than  a  steam  whistle  has  with  the  working  of 
the  locomotive.1  Wherever  Psychology  differs  from 
common  sense,  in  the  popular  meaning  of  that  term, 
the  teacher  naturally  abides  by  common  sense.  He 
therefore  has  no  difficulty  in  retaining  consciousness  in 
its  high  place,  and  making  it  the  fundamental  element 
in  John.  Every  fact  in  John's  life  of  which  John  is 

1  Epiphenomenon  is  the  name  that  philosophers  of  this  school  hurl 
at  consciousness. 


REVIEW   OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  19 

conscious  may  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  his  soul,  and 
is  a  psychological  fact.  But  while  every  fact  of  con- 
scious life  is  thus  psychological,  it  must  not  be  inferred 
that  Psychology  has  nothing  to  do  with  what  takes 
place  out  of  consciousness.  By  and  by  we  shall  see 
that  there  is  a  whole  class  of  facts  out  of  consciousness 
that  have  a  distinct  bearing  upon  what  takes  place 
within  consciousness.  These  are  regarded  as  psycho- 
logical facts  in  virtue  of  their  influence  upon  the  con- 
tent of  consciousness.  In  the  meantime,  to  come  to  a 
working  definition  of  Psychology,  we  may  say  that  it  is 
the  study  of  the  soul  of  John. 

It  is  not  perhaps  of  vital  importance  that  we  should 
define  Psychology :  it  is  different  with  John.  Who  or 
what  is  he?  Is  he  the  actual  boy  planted  there,  rudi- 
ments in  hand,  to  learn  a  certain  bit  of  Latin ;  or  is  he 
a  vague  abstraction,  a  sort  of  generalized  boy  who  an- 
swers to  the  "male  child"  of  the  dictionary?  Is  he 
the  result  of  subtraction  or  of  division  ?  Do  we  get 
him  by  simply  subtracting  him  from  the  seventy  in  his 
class ;  or  do  we  pound  the  whole  seventy  in  our  psy- 
chological mortar  till  they  form  a  uniform  mass  of  boy- 
hood, and  then  divide  by  seventy?  Is  John  a  boy,  or  a 
quotient? 

Is  there  an  average  John  ?  In  Physiology  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  much  good  work  has  been  done  by 
averages.  A  physiologist  can  give  a  very  full  account 
of  the  average  boy  of  twelve.  His  account  must  not  be 
tested  by  applying  it  only  to  one  boy,  say  our  John, 
but  to  a  series  of  boys.  Thus  treated  it  comes  out  all 
right,  and  is  of  practical  use.  Can  Psychology  do  the 


20  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

same  ?  If  it  cannot,  it  is  an  exposed  fraud.  It  is  im- 
possible. No  doubt  children  differ  enormously  in  their 
dispositions,  but  they  differ  no  less  in  their  bodies.  The 
thumbs  of  a  hundred  Johns  look  so  like  each  other  that 
one  might  think  them  interchangeable,  yet  so  unlike 
are  they  in  reality  that  an  ingenious  person  has  sug- 
gested the  general  abolition  of  seals  in  favour  of 
thumbs,  and  that  not  because  thumbs  are  always  more 
within  reach  than  seals,  but  because  their  imprint  on 
wax  is  always  unique.  All  the  same,  Physiology  has 
much  useful  information  to  give  about  the  average 
thumb.1 

Psychology  cannot  help  us  to  know  this  individual 
John  who  is  at  present  conning  his  rudiments.  It  can 
only  lay  down  the  general  principles  on  which  John's 
soul  is  constructed,  and  must  leave  his  peculiarities  to 
John's  particular  master.  So  far  from  grumbling  at 
this  limitation  to  the  power  of  Psychology,  the  master 
should  rejoice  in  it;  for  therein  lies  the  dignity  of  his 
calling.  There  can  never  be  a  teaching  machine  — 
at  any  rate,  none  but  a  two-legged  one. 

To  combine  the  knowledge  of  John  as  an  average 
with  the  knowledge  of  him  as  a  boy  is  no  doubt  a  little 
difficult.  Most  teachers  know  how  it  is  to  be  done,  for 
most  teachers  have  had  occasion,  in  the  course  of  their 
work,  to  make  use  of  a  certain  irritating  little  story 
entitled :  "  With  Brains,  sir." 

Before  calling  in  the  aid  of  formal  Psychology,  which 
after  all  only  treats  John  as  a  quotient,  let  us  see  what 
we  can  make  of  John  as  a  boy.     How  are  we  to  study 
1  Cf.  Fr.  Gallon's  little  book,  Finger  Prints,  Lond.  1892. 


EEVIEW   OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  21 

him  ?  At  the  very  threshold  of  our  subject  it  is  well  to 
give  up  all  hope  of  help  in  this  study  from  John  him- 
self. John  is  of  a  modest  and  retiring  disposition,  hav- 
ing no  pleasure  in  the  process  of  being  interviewed. 
Even  an  infusorian  is  not  quite  his  natural  self  under 
the  fierce  light  that  beats  upon  the  stage  of  a  micro- 
scope. It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  as  soon 
as  he  knows  himself  to  be  under  observation,  John 
ceases  to  be  himself.  He  becomes  a  new  boy  :  he  plays 
his  part  as  bravely  as  his  seniors. 

Yet  the  method  of  direct  observation  is  too  valuable 
to  be  thrown  aside,  and  as  the  microscopist  seeks  to 
modify  light,  temperature,  fluidity,  and  what  not,  to 
induce  the  trifling  specks  of  protoplasm  on  his  stage 
to  feel  at  home  and  act  accordingly,  so  must  the  teacher 
seek  to  put  the  pupil  at  his  ease,  and  examine  him  when 
off  his  guard.  Many  teachers  thus  study  their  pupils, 
and  are  content  to  go  no  further.  To  this  class,  too, 
belong  such  observers  as  Perez,  Preyer,  Darwin,  and 
the  "  father  "  in  Sully's  Studies  of  Childhood,  who  have 
all  made  elaborate  observations  of  children  at  the  very 
earliest  stages.  The  general  value  of  those  observa- 
tions has  yet  to  be  established,1  but  the  special  value  to 
the  parents  and  teachers  of  the  children  in  question  is 
immediate  and  unquestionable.  Educationists  who  are 
keenly  alive  to  the  danger  of  generalizing  on  such  nar- 
row basis  seek  to  attain  to  greater  accuracy  by  widen- 
ing their  observations  so  as  to  include  whole  classes  of 
subjects. 

1  Maudsley  has  no  patience  with  any  other  psychological  method. 
Vide  Body  and  Will,  p.  89,  note. 


22  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

They  adopt  the  method  of  what  is  called  Anthropo- 
metric  Registration,  in  which  all  the  essential  measure- 
ments of  each  child's  body  are  accurately  and  regularly 
recorded.  In  addition  to  the  mere  size,  all  manner  of 
interesting  particulars  may  be  noted.  Tests  of  all  kinds 
may  be  applied.  Sight  tests,  ear  tests,  weight  tests,  are 
quite  common,  and  new  instruments  are  being  added  to 
the  paidological  departments  of  the  colleges  to  carry 
the  testing  still  farther.  In  the  laboratory  of  the 
school  of  Pedagogy  of  New  York,  for  example,  we  are 
told  in  the  Neiv  York  Times  that  two  new  instruments 
have  been  introduced.  The  algometer  is  an  instrument 
for  measuring  a  child's  ability  to  stand  pain,  and  his 
general  sensitiveness.  Then  there  is  a  beautiful  machine 
for  testing  nervousness  and  emotional  sensibility  in 
children,  called  the  plethismograph. 

By  and  by  John  will  have  some  chance  of  attending 
to  Pittacus'  recommendation  "  Know  thyself " ;  for  he 
will  come  home  from  school  with  all  the  necessary  ma- 
terial neatly  set  down  in  black  and  white  decimals  in 
his  annual  report  card.  Yet,  after  all,  the  result  of  this 
direct  observation  is  only  the  beginning  of  knowledge. 
It  is  no  doubt  essential  as  a  foundation,  but  upon  it 
must  be  built  by  different  methods  the  true  John  that 
we  seek  to  know.  Practical  teachers,  like  practical  men 
of  other  professions,  are  very  fond  of  praising  the  result 
of  direct  observation,  and  depreciating  in  a  correspond- 
ing degree  the  information  derived  from  reflection  or 
from  books.  But  in  this  case  at  least  there  is  little 
ground  for  that  absolute  certainty  which  is  assumed  to 
be  the  characteristic  of  sense  observation.  We  cannot 


23 

observe  John's  soul ;  we  can  only  observe  his  body  and 
interpret  his  motions  in  terms  of  what  goes  on  within 
ourselves.  We  feel  thus  and  thus,  and  accordingly  act 
in  a  certain  way ;  John  acts  in  this  certain  way,  there- 
fore he  feels  thus  and  thus.  There  we  have  the  typical 
argument  on  which  sense  observation  depends  for  what- 
ever authority  it  may  possess  in  Psychology. 

To  this  process  of  interpretation  little  objection  need 
be  raised,  so  long  as  it  is  only  applied  to  persons  whose 
circumstances  are  identical  with  those  of  the  interpreter, 
or  nearly  so ;  but  the  farther  we  go  from  this  condition, 
the  less  reliable  does  the  process  become.  The  circum- 
stances of  John  and  his  master  are  notoriously  unlike, 
with  the  result  that  the  master's  interpretations  of  John's 
actions  are  not  always  quite  accurate.  Huxley  tells  us 
that  the  only  way  to  know  how  a  craytish  feels  is  to  be 
a  crayfish.1  It  may  be  said  that  the  master's  case  is  not 
quite  so  desperate  as  the  biologist's,  for  the  master  has 
been  a  boy,  and  he  can  remember  how  he  felt  and  acted 
then.  No  doubt  the  master  can  to  some  extent  repro- 
duce his  boyish  experiences,  and  if  proper  means  are 
taken  by  supplying  concrete  aids,  such  as  books  he  used 
to  read  and  instruments  he  used  to  handle,  he  may  attain 
to  a  really  valuable  revivifying  of  past  times.  Let  the 
master  make  as  full  a  biography  of  himself  as  his  mem- 
ory will  supply  materials  for ;  then  let  him  make  as  full 
a  collection  of  books,  toys,  and  other  childish  properties 
as  time  and  the  bump  behind  his  own  ear  have  spared. 
Finally,  let  him  consult  some  aged  female  relative  and 
by  her  aid  construct  a  chronological  table  to  accompany 
1  International  Scientific  Series  :  The  Crayfish,  p.  89. 


24  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

his  biography,  and  he  will  be  somewhat  astonished  at 
the  result.  Generally  speaking,  he  will  find  that  he  had 
thoughts  at  five  and  six  that  he  never  credits  his  infants 
with.  No  teacher  who  has  not  tried  this  method  can 
guess  what  a  revelation  it  will  prove.  Yet,  after  all, 
the  enormous  difference  thus  shown  between  our  present 
and  our  former  thoughts  only  makes  clearer  the  diffi- 
culty in  ever  really  bridging  over  the  gulf  that  sepa- 
rates the  man  from  the  child.  At  his  best  the  man 
cannot  recall  the  past  without  reading  into  it  a  great 
deal  that  belongs  to  a  period  subsequent  to  that  supposed 
to  be  recalled.  It  is  as  impossible  for  us  mentally  as 
it  is  physically  to  become  boys  again.  In  spite  of  our 
most  vigorous  abstraction,  we  read  some,  at  least,  of  our 
present  into  our  past. 

If  students  in  training  for  the  profession  of  teaching 
could  by  any  chance  win  an  answer  to  Elizabeth  Akers 
Allen's  prayer  — 

"  Backward,  turn  backward,  O  Time,  in  your  flight ; 
Make  me  a  child  again,  just  for  to-night!  " 

they  might  well  dispense  with  the  hours  that  wise  coun- 
cils insist  upon  their  spending  in  the  practising  schools 
connected  with  their  college.  But  even  the  poetess  her- 
self had  little  hope  in  her  prayer.  The  teacher  must 
look  elsewhere  for  help. 

There  is  a  cheerful  little  story,  resting  upon  doubtful 
authority,  which  tells  how  a  progressive  and  enterprising 
power  in  the  far  East  sent  certain  high  officials  to  Eng- 
land to  pick  up  various  bits  of  civilization  that  those 
Orientals  thought  would  be  highly  desirable  at  their  end 


REVIEW   OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  25 

of  the  world.  In  particular,  those  officials  were  enjoined 
to  discover  the  most  civilized  thing  in  religions.  As 
they  wanted  a  genuinely  high-class  article,  a  religion 
that  would  really  work,  they  were  recommended  to 
apply  to  a  certain  professor  at  Oxford  who  had  made 
religions  a  specialty,  but  who  was  greatly  scandalized 
at  this  too  practical  application  of  the  principle  of  Com- 
parative Religion. 

Practical  teachers  look  upon  Psychology  in  pretty 
much  the  same  light  as  the  Japanese  representatives 
looked  upon  religion.  What  they  want  is  a  Psychology 
that  will  work.  As  human  beings,  such  teachers  may  be 
interested  in  Psychology  as  a  branch  of  general  cult- 
ure ;  as  teachers,  they  treat  it  as  a  means  towards  an  end, 
and  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  they  regard  it  as  on  the 
whole  a  very  ineffectual  means  towards  that  end.  There 
is  no  more  common  criticism  of  a  work  on  Psychology 
for  Teachers  or  Mental  Science  as  Applied  to  Education 
than  that  Psychology  and  education  are  like  oil  and 
water  —  they  will  not  mix.  To  be  sure,  in  most  school- 
management  books  they  do  not  get  the  chance.  All  the 
Psychology,  such  as  it  is,  is  gathered  into  a  few  prelimi- 
nary pages,  and  is  carefully  kept  to  its  place  there  under 
the  disparaging  name  of  Theory^  while  the  rest  of  the 
book  swells  out  into  a  totally  unwarrantable  size  under 
the  respect-commanding  title  of  Practice.  Teachers 
are  treated  haughtily  by  philosophers  to  statements 
which  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but  which  are  certainly 
not  adapted  to  practical  application  to  teaching.  We 
have  worked  too  long  on  the  beggarly  principle  that 
teachers  must  not  be  choosers.  There  is  a  sort  of  feel- 


26  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

ing  abroad  that  education  is  utterly  dependent  on  Psy- 
chology for  any  social  standing  it  may  possess.  John 
is  John,  and  Psychology  is  his  only  exponent.  To  inter- 
fere with  Psychology  is  therefore  to  lay  sacrilegious 
hands  upon  the  very  ark  of  the  nature  of  things,  to  kick 
against  the  pricks  of  the  eternal  verities.  We  cannot 
change  John  by  quarrelling  with  Psychology;  let  us 
therefore  thank  the  psychologist  for  the  crumbs  of  infor- 
mation he  may  throw  to  us,  and  spend  all  our  efforts  in 
seeking  to  make  the  most  of  them  in  our  practical  work. 

But  there  are  Psychologies  and  Psychologies,  and 
some  of  them  are  better  suited  to  our  purpose  than 
others.  There  may  be  a  one  true  and  living  Psychology 
before  which  all  the  rest  must  bow,  but  in  the  meantime 
it  has  not  made  good  its  claims.  The  pursuit  of  this 
true  Psychology  is  no  doubt  a  very  important  work, 
but  it  is  not  the  work  of  the  teacher.  As  practical 
teachers,  we  do  not  ask  from  Psychology  a  statement 
of  metaphysical  truth ;  we  want  rather  a  system  which 
can  explain  all  the  known  mental  facts  in  such  a  way 
as  to  render  them  available  in  education.  In  short,  we 
propose  to  treat  the  various  schools  of  Psychology  as 
so  many  hypotheses  —  which,  after  all,  is  probably  not 
far  from  the  truth  —  and  to  select  that  school  which 
promises  to  be  most  useful  in  meeting  our  needs.  We 
shall  then  pass  in  review  before  us  the  various  systems 
with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  selecting  that  which  suits 
our  purpose. 

To  begin  with  the  most  rudimentary,  we  have  Count 
Tolstoi's  experiment  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  his  estate  near 
Tula.  Here  we  have  a  sort  of  ab  ovo  Psychology.  The 


HE  VIEW   OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  27 

Count  begins  at  the  very  beginning,  without  bias  or 
theory — just  as  so  many  teachers  take  a  pride  in  doing; 
and,  like  them,  learns  with  great  labour  and  pain  what 
any  educational  psychologist  could  have  told  him  in 
five  minutes.  Tolstoi's  main  principle  is  practically  an 
application  of  Spencer's  doctrine  that  all  true  study 
must  be  pleasant.  At  Yasnaya  Polyana  no  child  is  to 
be  compelled  to  do  anything.  Tolstoi  depends  on  the  in- 
herent goodness  of  humanity.  Each  child  is  a  law  unto 
himself.  This  is  how  it  works.  Tolstoi  himself  speaks.1 

"  The  teacher  goes  into  the  room  and  finds  the  chil- 
dren rolling  and  scuffling  on  the  floor,  and  crying  at 
the  top  of  their  voices :  '  You're  choking  me !  You 
stop  pulling  my  hair ! '  or  '  Let  up  :  that'll  do  ! ' 

" '  Piotr  Mikhailovitch,'  cries  a  voice  from  under  the 
heap,  as  the  teacher  comes  in,  '  make  him  stop.' 

'"Good  evening,  Piotr  Mikhailovitch,'  shout  the 
others,  adding  their  share  to  the  tumult. 

"The  teacher  takes  the  books  and  distributes  them  to 
those  who  have  come  to  the  bureau.  First  those  on 
top  of  the  heap  on  the  floor,  then  those  lying  under- 
neath, want  a  book. 

"The  pile  gradually  diminishes.  As  soon  as  the 
majority  have  their  books,  all  the  rest  run  to  the 
bureau,  and  cry  '  Me  one,  Me  one ! ' 

"  '  Give  me  the  one  I  had  last  evening  ! ' 

"  '  Give  me  the  Koltsof  book ! '  and  so  on. 

"If  there  happen  to  be  any  two  scuffle rs  left  struggling 
on  the  floor,  those  who  have  taken  their  places  with 
their  books  shout:  'What  are  you  so  slow  for?  You 

1  The  Long  Exile,  etc.,  p.  264  (Dole's  Translation,  Walter  Scott). 


28  THE   HEKBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

make  so  much  noise  that  we  can't  hear  anything. 
Hush ! '  The  enthusiastic  fellows  come  to  order ;  and, 
breathing  hard,  run  after  their  books,  and  only  for  the 
first  moment  or  two  does  the  cooling  agitation  betray 
itself  in  an  occasional  motion  of  a  leg. 

"  The  spirit  of  war  takes  its  flight,  and  the  spirit  of 
learning  holds  sway  in  the  room.  With  the  same  en- 
thusiasm with  which  the  lad  had  been  pulling  Mitka's 
hair,  he  now  reads  his  Koltsof  book  —  thus  the  works 
of  Koltsof  are  known  among  us  —  with  teeth  almost 
shut  together,  with  shining  eyes,  and  total  oblivion  to 
all  around  him  except  his  book.  To  tear  him  from  his 
reading  requires  fully  as  much  strength  as  it  required 
before  to  get  him  away  from  his  wrestling. 

"The  pupils  sit  wherever  they  please  —  on  benches, 
chairs,  on  the  window-sill,  on  the  floor,  or  in  the  arm- 
chair." 

But  to  what  end  continue  with  the  struggle  for  the 
arm-chair,  the  deliberate  departure  of  the  whole  school 
during  school  hours,  and  the  hundred  other  experiences 
that  produce  the  ridiculous  mouse  of  conclusion  —  for 
the  Count  gains  from  his  experiment  the  net  result  (1) 
that  children  like  stories  much  better  than  lessons,  and 
(2)  that  peasant  children  may  tell  better  stories  than 
Tolstoi  himself.  Yasnaya  Polyana  is  not  likely  to  affect 
seriously  the  future  of  the  new  education. 

If  Tolstoi's  methods  show  Psychology  in  its  crudest 
forms,  we  have  only  to  turn  to  the  psych ophysical  school 
to  find  a  corrective.  To  Fechner  belongs  the  honour  of 
founding  this  school,  which  professes  to  reduce  Psy- 
chology to  an  exact  science.  It  is  true  that  Herbart 


REVIEW    OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  -29 

anticipated  his  pretensions  by  founding  a  Psychology 
upon  Mathematics,  but  for  practical  purposes  Fechner's 
was  the  first  real  attempt  to  introduce  exact  methods 
into  Psychology.  That  the  subject  treated  in  Fechner's 
book  (published  in  1860)  is  a  science  no  one  will  deny ; 
that  his  methods  are  exact  is  beyond  question.  The 
only  trouble  is  that  his  subject  is  not  Psychology.  Had 
his  Psychophysik  contained  a  preliminary  erratum  note 
"  In  this  volume,  for  Psychology  read  Physiology," 
there  would  have  been  nothing  to  object  to  in  his 
system.  He  has  taught  us  a  great  deal  about  the 
nature  and  speed  of  nervous  reaction  ;  his  only  mistake 
is  in  thinking  that  his  experiments  on  matter  can  be 
simply  interpreted  in  terms  of  mind. 

While  this  pseudo-psychology  with  its  tape-lines  and 
chronographs,  its  algometers  and  plethismographs,  can 
do  little  for  us  in  the  way  of  rational  explanation  of 
educational  principles,  it  is  of  great  value  to  the 
teacher.  Physiology  is  almost  as  essential  to  the  Art  of 
education  as  Psychology  is  to  the  Science,  so  we  need 
not  be  surprised  that  many  practical  hints  may  be  got 
from  a  study  of  Weber's  Law,  and  the  other  generali- 
zations to  which  psychophysics  have  attained. 

Bain  and  Spencer  write  on  Education  with  a  psycho- 
physical  bias,  but  both  are  too  clear-headed  to  be 
blinded  by  the  glamour  of  a  perfectly  symmetrical 
system.  After  reading  Fechner  and  his  disciples  for  a 
little,  one  is  tempted  to  think  that  all  one  needs  is  a 
painless  way  of  trepanning  the  children  so  as  to  get  at 
their  brains  with  our  reagents  and  instruments,  A 
little  pressure  here,  a  gentle  stimulus  there,  and  the 


30  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

work  of  seven  years  is  done  in  a  few  minutes.  It 
would  be  so  much  pleasanter  for  all  parties  than  the 
present  deplorable  guessing  and  experimenting  from 
the  outside.1 

While  no  one  has  yet  suggested  this  coarse  inter- 
ference with  the  physical  basis  of  mind,  a  daring  young 
French  psychologist  has  taken  a  step  in  this  direction. 
Guyau,  in  his  Education  and  Heredity,  has  practically 
taken  up  the  position  that  one  of  the  most  striking  dis- 
coveries of  the  psychophysicists  should  be  applied  to 
the  actual  work  of  teaching.  Hypnotism  can  no  longer 
be  regarded  as  the  mere  material  of  an  eighteen-penny 
show.  It  is  now  treated  seriously  by  our  best  psycho- 
logical writers,  and  now  that  a  respectable  authority 
has  seen  fit  to  introduce  it  into  educational  discussion, 
the  time  has  come  to  speak  of  it  without  the  preliminary 
smile  or  sneer  to  which  it  is  accustomed. 

1  There  is  something  grewsome  in  reading,  for  instance,  of  "  the 
psychic  action  of  coffee."  Cannot  we  even  have  breakfast  in  peace, 
without  elegantly  expressed  but  terribly  depressing  remarks  on  coffee 
as  "an  intellectual  poison"  ?  To  be  sure,  we  have  the  comfort  of 
learning  that  while  itself  a  poison,  this  part  of  our  breakfast  is  an 
antidote  to  another  poison  —  opium.  A  recommendation  that  counts 
for  more  in  the  mind  of  a  Scotsman  is  that  this  beverage  is  "  un  ali- 
ment d'e"pargne."  It  appears  that  it  decreases  the  development  of 
carbonic  acid  in  the  system,  and  thus  plays  the  part  of  damper.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  has  the  effect  of  stimulating  the  will,  without 
in  the  same  degree  stimulating  the  imagination  or  the  general  power 
to  work,  which  is  certainly  a  very  unsatisfactory  state  of  affairs.  We 
would  at  once  forswear  coffee  forever  were  it  not  that,  a  couple  of 
pages  further  on,  we  are  told  that  nearly  the  same  things  apply  to  tea 
and  cocoa.  We  close  the  book  hurriedly,  and  rejoice  that  psycho- 
physics  is  as  yet  in  its  infancy.  See  Richet,  L'Homme  et  V  Intelli- 
gence :  Les  poisons  de  1' intelligence,  p.  144. 


REVIEW    OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  31 

You  are  not  to  suppose  that  Guyau  proposes  to  set 
off  the  whole  school  into  a  hypnotic  trance,  and  then 
mould  the  passive  minds  into  knowledge.  Scientific 
psychophysicists  have  now  made  up  their  minds  that 
hypnotic  suggestion  may  act  without  the  formality  of 
the  trance,  and  what  Guyau  wants  us  to  do  is  to  apply 
this  principle  in  dealing  with  our  pupils.  If  he  is  to  be 
believed, 

"  They'll  take  suggestion  as  a  cat  laps  milk ; 

They'll  tell  the  clock  to  any  business  that 

We  say  befits  the  hour." 

The  whole  subject  is  yet  too  much  in  the  clouds  for 
us  to  form  very  definite  conclusions ;  but  it  is  surely  of 
the  utmost  importance  that  we  as  teachers  should  know 
that  such  matters  are  being  discussed.  'There  are  timid 
spirits  among  us  who  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  less 
said  on  such  subjects  the  better.  But  it  is  well  to  re- 
member that  in  all  probability  every  teacher  to-day,  in 
this  practical  land  of  ours,  does  make  use  of  hypnotism. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  that  mysterious  power  that 
every  good  teacher  exerts  over  his  pupils  ?  Above  all, 
what  is  the  meaning  of  that  Sympathy  of  Numbers  that 
we  hear  so  much  of  in  our  school-management  books, 
and  to  so  little  purpose?  There  certainly  is  more  in 
our  every-day  work  in  school  than  is  dreamt  of  in  the 
philosophical  introductions  to  our  school-management 
books.  But  while  it  is  well  to  keep  our  minds  open  to 
all  sources  from  which  truth  may  come,  it  is  evident 
that  the  Suggestion  school  is  not  yet  in  a  position  to 
make  practical  recommendations,  much  less  to  set  up  a 
Psychology  that  shall  enable  us  to  arrive  at  a  true  know- 


32  THE  HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

ledge  of  John  — of  John,  at  any  rate,  in  the  usual  robust 
health  in  which  we  are  accustomed  to  see  him  at  school. 
In  an  article  on  "  Artificial  Modifications  of  the  Character 
in  Somnambulism,"1  Guyau  seeks  to  point  out  the  useful- 
ness of  such  processes  in  education,  but  he  is  driven  to 
make  the  honest  reservation  "  at  least  in  the  morbid  state" 
It  is  time  now  to  come  to  the  Psychology  that  actually 
holds  the  field  among  us.  There  is  a  popular  belief 
that  Locke  is  dead,  that  his  system  has  had  its  day, 
that  it  did  capital  work  in  its  time,  and  that  it  has  now 
given  place  to  better  things.  Philosophical  writers  are 
not  unfair  to  Locke.  They  admit  that  we  are  higher 
than  he  only  because  we  stand  upon  his  shoulders ;  but 
they  regard  him  as  none  the  less  dead  for  that.  We  do 
not  at  all  question  the  accuracy  of  the  biographer  who 
tells  us  that  "  The  tomb  of  Locke  may  be  seen  on  the 
south  side  of  the  parish  church  of  High  Laver,  bearing 
a  Latin  inscription  prepared  by  his' own  hand."  We 
would  only  add  that  the  Latin  inscription  might  well 
have  quoted  the  threadbare  "Non  omnis  moriar,"  for 
Locke  was  never  so  much  alive  as  he  is  to-day.  Almost 
every  philosopher  who  writes  a  book  feels  compelled  to 
dispose  of  Locke  first :  he  seems  unable  to  get  to  his  own 
theory  save  over  the  prostrate  form  that  lies  on  the 
south  side  of  that  parish  church.  Though  they  spend 
all  their  introductory  chapters  in  showing  how  Locke 
went  wrong,  philosophers  do  not  seem  able  to  get  along 
without  him.2  They  go  farther:  they  even  seem  to 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  Avril,  1883,  p.  433. 

2  Herbart  himself  seems  to  be  no  exception.     Ribot,  speaking  of 
Herbart's  ideas  being  so  much  in  advance  of  those  prevalent  in  the 


REVIEW   OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  33 

like  him.  It  is  no  small  matter  to  draw  from  a  psychol- 
ogist a  sentence  so  nearly  tender  as  "  Locke  says  in  a 
memorable  page  of  his  dear  old  book."  J 

Powerful  as  he  is  amongst  professional  philosophers, 
it  is  among  the  great  mass  of  the  non-professional 
philosophers  that  Locke  is  most  influential  —  among 
teachers  in  particular.  Teachers  suck  in  Locke  from 
the  introductions  to  their  earliest  school-management 
books ;  they  pore  over  him  and  his  critics  from  the  time 
that  they  enter  college  till  the  fatal  day  on  which  they 
chalk  up  the  pathetic  word  Ichabod  on  the  college 
doors,  and  make  their  way  out  into  the  world,  there  to 
carry  into  practice  the  Locke  they  have  learned  —  and 
all  this,  in  many  cases,  without  having  more  than  heard 
the  name  of  Locke. 

For  Locke's  influence  far  exceeds  his  fame.  Most  of 
his  followers  do  not  know  their  master.  His  point  of 
view  coincides  so  completely  with  that  of  the  ordinary 
intelligent  man  in  the  street,  that  his  following  in  all 
English-speaking  countries  is  infinitely  greater  than 
any  other  philosophical  writer  can  command.  It  has 
been  said  that  every  child  is  born  into  the  world  either 
a  little  Platonist  or  a  little  Aristotelian.  This  may  be 
true  of  the  rest  of  the  worM,  but  wherever  the  verb 
cogitare  is  translated  by  the  words  to  think,  there  every 
child  is  born  a  little  Lockian.  • 

metaphysic-ridden  Germany  of  his  time,  says:  "J'incline  a  croire, 
pourtant,  qu'elles  avaient  e"te"  sugge're'es  a  Herbart  moins  par  ses 
propres  reflexions  que  par  la  lecture  de  Locke."  —  La  Psychologic 
Allemande  Contemporaine,  p.  4. 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  679. 


34  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

Locke  then  fairly  claims  our  attention  with  every 
chance  of  winning  our  final  approval,  though  the  reader 
well  knows  that  Locke  will  after  all  turn  out  to  be 
only  a  goodly  Eliab  brought  in  to  give  place  by  and  by 
to  some  stripling  of  a  German  David.  This  process  has 
become  habit  and  repute  in  writing  of  this  class ;  for 
Locke  shares  with  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  the  unenviable 
rdle  of  the  Aunt  Sally  of  Philosophy.  No  work  on 
Philosophy  is  complete  without  a  preliminary  refutation 
of  Locke,  and  an  up-to-date  sneer  at  Mr.  Spencer.  The 
living  philosopher  is  particularly  able  to  defend  himself, 
and  the  dead  one  needs  no  defence ;  he  only  requires  to 
be  understood.  He  may  be  wrong,  in  fact  he  must  be 
wrong,  since  the  whole  world  who  writes  is  unanimous 
on  the  point ;  but  he  is  honest  and  fair  above  most  men, 
and,  for  a  philosopher,  eminently  clear. 

His  method  commends  itself  to  us  by  its  practical 
common  sense,  its  lack  of  any  assumption  of  superior 
private  knowledge,  its  determination  to  take  nothing  for 
granted.  There  is  a  useful  little  book  called  Inquire 
Within  upon  Everything.  This  title  might  with  great 
appropriateness  have  been  adopted  by  Locke  as  the  motto 
of  his  great  work  The  Essay  on  the  Human  Understand- 
ing. "  I  can  no  more  know  anj^thing  by  another  man's 
understanding,  than  I  can  see  by  another  man's  eyes," 
says  Locke.  Therefore  he  maintains  that  the  only  way 
to  get  at  the  meaning  of  knowledge  is  to  inquire  within 
his  own  mind.  Introspection,  looking  within,  turning 
the  mind  inwards  upon  itself,  —  these  are  the  names  of 
a  process  that  has  always  commanded  the  fullest  confi- 
dence of  English  and  Scottish  and  even  American  phi- 


REVIEW    OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  35 

losophers.  "  Seeing  is  believing  "  is  as  satisfactory  to 
introspective  philosophers  as  it  could  be  to  Martin  Tup- 
per  himself.  If  I  look  into  my  mind  and  find  certain 
things  there,  I  know  them  to  be  there.  And  whatever 
I  cannot  find  there,  I  do  not  know  to  be  there.  Observe 
that  the  introspectionists  do  not  say  that  because  they 
cannot  observe  a  certain  phenomenon  in  the  mind,  that 
phenomenon  is  not  there.  All  they  maintain  is  that 
they  do  not  know  it  to  be  there.  Whatever  may  be  the 
faults  of  this  school,  unfairness  is  not  one  of  them.  It 
claims  not  an  inch  beyond  what  the  sternest  logic  will 
allow.  The  radical  defect  of  the  school  is  very  obvious, 
very  simple,  and  quite  irremediable.  When  the  mind  is 
turned  back  upon  itself,  it  can  never  see  the  whole  of  it- 
self. There  must  always  remain  the  part  seeing  and  the 
part  seen,  yet  to  know  the  mind  as  the  introspectionists 
seek  to  know  it  demands  that  it  should  be  all  seen  at  once. 
Introspection  cannot  fulfil  its  own  conditions ;  it  ob- 
viously requires  to  be  helped  to  attain  its  end.  So  far 
as  it  goes,  it  is  admirable,  and  it  goes  a  great  way.  Yet 
it  breaks  down  at  a  very  important  place.  By  looking 
into  our  minds  we  may  see  pretty  clearly  what  they  con- 
tain ;  we  may  note  from  time  to  time  the  rapid  passage 
of  ideas  causing  a  complete  change  in  the  content  of  the 
mind.  What  we  cannot  well  observe  is  the  mechanism 
by  which  such  changes  are  effected.  The  introspection- 
ists, so  far  from  explaining  this  mechanism,  hardly  seem 
to  realize  very  clearly  the  distinction  between  the  con- 
tents of  the  mind  and  the  laws  according  to  which  these 
contents  are  developed  and  modified.  No  doubt  philoso- 
phers are  ready  to  step  in  here  and  point  out  that  Hume 


36  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

at  least  recognized  the  distinction,  and  to  give  an  abstruse 
disquisition  in  which  Hume's  "  natural  relations "  are 
proved  to  correspond  to  the  content,  while  his  "philosoph- 
ical relations"  stand  for  the  mechanical  elements.1  But 
a  Philosophy  that  requires  so  much  explanation  is  of  little 
use  to  us ;  we  want  one  that  says  plainly  what  it  means 
in  matters  in  which  we  are  professionally  interested. 

By  the  time  John  comes  to  school  he  has  what  are 
known  as  ideas.  It  may  be  supposed  that  he  has  not 
many,  and  that  what  he  has  are  not  of  much  conse- 
quence. As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  acquired  more 
first-hand  ideas  before  he  comes  to  school  than  he 
acquires  during  all  the  remainder  of  his  life.  In  any 
case  he  has  ideas,  and  these  must  be  reckoned  with. 

.  At  this  point  I  cannot  do  better  than  in  the  words  of 
Locke :  "  Beg  pardon  of  my  reader  for  the  frequent  use 
of  the  word  idea  which  he  will  find  in  the  following 
treatise.  It  being  the  term  which,  I  think,  serves  best 
to  stand  for  whatsoever  is  the  object  of  the  understand- 
ing when  a  man  thinks,  I  have  used  it  to  express  what- 
ever is  meant  by  phantasm,  notion,  species,  or  whatever 
it  is  which  the  mind  can  be  employed  about  in  think- 
ing; and  I  could  not  avoid  frequently  using  it. 

"I  presume  that  it  will  be  easily  granted  me  that 
there  are  such  ideas  in  men's  minds.  Everyone  is  con- 
scious of  them  in  himself;  and  men's  words  and  actions 
will  satisfy  him  that  they  are  in  others. 

"  Our  first  inquiry,  then,  shall  be  how  they  came  into 
the  mind.  "2 

1  G.  F.  Stout,  Mind,  1889. 

2  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,  Bk.  I.,  Chap.  I. 


REVIEW  OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  37 

This  last  sentence  lets  slip  the  hounds,  and  starts  the 
grand  tally-ho  for  ideas.  Where  did  John  get  those 
ideas  that  Locke  says  we  cannot  deny  that  John 
possesses  ?  Were  they  waiting  for  him  when  he  came 
into  the  world,  or  did  he  bring  them  with  him  from  the 
shores  of  that  great  unknown  whence  he  came  ?  Did 
they  grow  in  him  as  the  cells  of  his  brain  grew,  or 
are  they  stuffed  into  him  like  his  rusks  and  arrowroot  ? 
On  the  whole,  the  stuffing  theory  is  most  popular  with 
people  in  general,  and  with  teachers  in  particular. 
Descartes'  theory  that  ideas  are  born  along  with  John 
has  never  recovered  from  Locke's  attack.  Plato's 
theory  of  reminiscence,  that  maintained  that  John's 
ideas  were  only  the  memories  of  a  previous  existence, 
was  never  more  than  a  poetical  myth.  Scientific  men 
cannot  satisfy  even  themselves  with  the  theory  that 
ideas  are  a  sort  of  morbid  secretion  of  specially  modi- 
fied protoplasm.1 

Locke,  on  the  other  hand,  exactly  met  the  wants  of 
his  practical  fellow-countrymen,  with  his  theory  that 
the  mind  is  a  sort  of  idea-box,  into  which  the  senses 
admit  as  many  ideas  as  are  good  for  us.  His  theory  is 
not  in  its  elements  new,  since  it  consists  in  the  applica- 
tion of  a  principle  widely  recognized  among  the  School- 
men: "Nihil  in  intellectu  quod  non  fuerit  prius  in 
sensu."  The  mind  gets  all  the  ideas  through  the 
senses.  It  is  a  sort  of  blank  sheet  of  note  paper  on 
which  the  senses  write.  The  mind,  however,  is  not 
quite  passive ;  it  has  the  duty  of  combining  and  ar- 

1  Cf.  Cabanis'  famous  statement  that  the  brain  secretes  thought  as 
the  liver  secretes  bile. 


38  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

ranging  the  ideas  supplied  by  sense.  It  is  here  that 
the  critics  begin  to  enjoy  themselves.  They  point  out 
that  Locke's  mind  is  sometimes  active,  sometimes  pas- 
sive, as  the  needs  of  his  theory  vary,  and,  further,  that 
a  whole  class  of  ideas  are  in  a  sort  smuggled  into  the 
mind.  They  freely  admit  that  John  can  get  the  idea 
of  red  in  110  other  way  than  through  the  sense  of  sight. 
But  how  the  mind  passes  from  this  idea  of  red  to  that 
of  colour  is  what  the  'critics  are  anxious  to  know,  and 
what  Locke  fails  to  explain.  In  other  words,  Locke  is 
quite  clear  about  the  mere  content  of  the  mind,  and 
knows  that  there  is  a  mechanism  ;  but  he  makes  no 
serious  attempt  to  discover  how  this  mechanism  works. 
He  knows  the  idea  red,  and  the  idea  colour,  and  he 
knows  that  somehow  or  other  the  one  arises  out  of  the 
other ;  but  beyond  endowing  the  mind  with  a  faculty 
for  this  sort  of  work,  he  leaves  the  change  unexplained. 
This  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  remember 
that  Locke  and  all  his  school  regarded  the  action  of  the 
mind  as  limited  to  a  series  of  successive  states.  For 
him,  and  for  the  whole  associationist  school,  the  mind 
was  a  sort  of  hour-glass.1  The  upper  bulb  was  filled 
with  ideas  that  were  out  of  consciousness,  but  were  on 
their  way  into  it ;  the  lower  bulb  was  filled  with  ideas 
that  had  just  passed  out  of  consciousness.  No  idea 
was  in  consciousness  save  when  it  was  passing  through 
the  narrow  neck  from  the  one  bulb  into  the  other. 
This  conception  of  the  mind  leads  to  endless  difficulties, 
which  are  seen  with  greater  or  less  clearness  by  all  the 

1  The  associationists,  of  course,  do  not  use  this  figure  ;  but  I  do  not 
think  I  am  unfair  to  them  in  making  it. 


REVIEW   OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  39 

school,  and  which  are  met  by  more  or  less  ingenious 
devices.  In  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,1  for  example,  the 
difficulty  is  so  keenly  felt  that  he  practically  admits 
the  coexistence  of  several  states  in  the  mind,  but  is 
very  careful  to  maintain  his  consistency  by  asserting 
that  this  coexistence  is  only  "seeming." 

We  are  not  at  all  concerned  to  defend  the  associa- 
tionists,  or  to  help  them  out  of  the  difficulty  into  which 
their  principles  have  led  them.  We  leave  Locke  with 
regret,  thanking  him  for  what  help  he  has  been  able  to 
give  us,  and  turn  elsewhere  to  see  what  other  systems 
can  offer.  If  our  aim  were  to  find  out  John's  true 
place  in  nature,  and  to  explain  him  as  a  phenomenon 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  eternity,  we  could  not 
do  better  than  throw  in  our  lot  with  the  school  of 
idealism,  as  it  is  called.  This,  however,  offers  more  a 
system  of  Metaphysics  than  a  Psychology,  and  a  Psy- 
chology is  good  enough  for  us  as  teachers. 

Education  has  not  been  able  to  escape  the  all-pervad- 
ing force  of  this  idealism,  and  two  of  the  greatest  men 
on  our  roll  of  educators  owe  much  of  their  inspiration 
to  its  influence.  Of  the  two  founders  of  the  Froebelian 
school,  Pestalozzi  was  probably  the  greater  man,  while 
Froebel  was  the  greater  philosopher.  This  is  not,  per- 
haps, very  high  praise ;  for,  truth  to  tell,  neither  was 
very  distinguished  in  this  direction.  Yet  obscure  and 
confused  as  are  Froebel's  philosophic  utterances,  they 
undoubtedly  embody  the  spirit  of  German  idealism. 

1  Philosophy  of  Human  Mind,  Lecture  45,  p.  290 :  "  In  itself  every 
notion,  however  seemingly  complex,  is  and  must  be  truly  simple,  being 
one  state  or  affection  of  one  simple  substance,  mind." 


40  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  doctrine  of  the  organic  unity  of  the  universe 
underlies  all  his  theories,  and  cannot  be  neglected  in 
considering  his  principles  unless  we  are  prepared  for 
meaningless  confusion. 

The  usual  criticism  of  this  idealism  as  a  system  is  that 
it  deals  with  such  wide  and  universal  principles  that 
there  is  a  danger  that  universality  is  gained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  content ;  that  the  principles  become  empty  for- 
mulae which  lose  hold  of  the  facts  they  profess  to  explain, 
and  present  a  specious  harmony  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  omitting  inconvenient  facts.  The  idealist's  difficulty, 
like  the  clergyman's,  is  usually  in  the  application. 

Froebel  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  In  the  Education 
of  Man  we  have  beautiful,  if  obscurely  expressed,  truths 
about  education.  In  the  kindergarten  we  have  clear, 
cut-and-dry,  consistent  principles.  But  the  kinder- 
garten cannot  be  evolved  from  the  Education  of  Man. 
Between  the  two  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  a  gulf  that 
Froebel  has  not  bridged. 

The  universe  is  an  organic  whole,  in  which  all  things 
must  work  together  for  good.  Every  animal,  person, 
place,  or  thing  has  its  allotted  position  and  work  in  this 
rational  universe,  and  can  only  fulfil  its  function  by 
being  true  to  itself,  consistent  with  its  own  nature. 
John  must  develop,  and  that  according  to  fixed  laws. 
What  those  laws  are  can  be  discovered  only  by  learn- 
ing the  course  of  nature.  Find  what  nature  wills,  says 
the  Froebelian,  and  do  that.  John  must  develop  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  his  own  nature  ;  his  development  must 
be  self-development,  development  from  within.  Before, 
therefore,  we  can  educate  John,  we  must  know  him. 


REVIEW   OF   PSYCHOLOGIES  41 

Here  we  have  stumbled  upon  the  radical  difference 
between  the  old  education  and  the  new.  No  doubt  the 
change  from  Latin  to  John  was  at  least  suggested  by 
Rousseau  in  Emile,  but  to  the  Froebelian  school  belongs 
the  glory  of  the  advance.  Pestalozzi  began,  and  Froebel 
developed,  the  study  of  child-nature  as  a  key  to  educa- 
tion. The  words  on  Froebel's  tomb  "  Lasst  uns  unsern 
Kindern  leben  "  are  usually  translated  "  Let  us  live  for 
our  children. "  But  they  have  been  rendered,  and  some 
prefer  the  reading,  "  Let  us  live  with  our  children." 
The  first  embodies  the  spirit  of  the  law  of  child-study  ; 
the  second  expresses  its  very  letter. 

Unfortunately,  the  way  to  know  John  is  not  sug- 
gested. Since  the  whole  universe  is  a  rational  organism, 
it  follows  that  if  we  know  how  that  organism  works, 
we  know  exactly  how  to  educate  John.  But  to  exhaust 
the  universe  seems  a  somewhat  tedious  way  to  get  at 
the  information  we  want.  The  Froebelians  do  not  face 
this  rational  outcome  of  their  principles ;  they  content 
themselves  with  a  metaphor.  The  child  is  a  plant. 
Once  the  Froebelian  has  said  this,  he  has  uttered  the 
shibboleth  of  his  school.  Thereafter  he  is  content  to 
take  his  place  as  a  humble  under-gardener,  and  watch 
with  interest  and  admiration  the  development  of  John. 
Education  becomes,  in  the  very  words  of  the  master,  "  a 
passivity,  a  following."  The  natural  outcome  of  those 
principles  is  a  general  paralysis.  Education  becomes 
a  great  mystery. 

Froebel  is  at  once  worse  and  better  than  his  princi- 
ples :  worse,  inasmuch  as  he  has  failed  to  correlate 
theory  and  practice  ;  better,  inasmuch  as  his  practice 


42  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

is  not  the  paralysis  to  which  his  principles  would  lead 
him.  He  does  not  carry  his  philosophy  far  enough  to 
demonstrate  the  possibility  of  what  is  called  education 
in  an  organic  universe.  If  John  must  develop  accord- 
ing to  fixed  laws,  if  John  must  be  self -determined,  what 
work  is  left  for  the  teacher  ?  Yet  this  enforced  "  pas- 
sivity" is  not  allowed  to  degenerate  into  inactivity. 
The  master's  work  is  reduced  to  a  "  benevolent  super- 
intendence," no  doubt,  but  it  is  wonderful  how  much 
can  be  read  into  such  a  phrase.  Even  the  plant  meta- 
phor is  not  quite  such  a  restriction  as  at  first  sight 
appears.  It  leaves  the  teacher  all  the  rights  of  prun- 
ing, and  grafting,  and  even  transplanting.  At  a  pinch, 
corporal  punishment  itself  might  be  smuggled  into  the 
kindergarten,  and  be  justified  by  the  case  of  the  walnut 
tree  in  the  old  Warwickshire  couplet :  — 

"A  woman,  a  dog,  and  a  walnut  tree, 
The  more  they  are  beaten,  the  better  they  be." 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Froebel's  failure  to  correlate 
his  theory  and  his  practice  by  no  means  proves  that 
either  theory  or  practice  is  wrong.  To  me,  each  in  its 
own  place  seems  eminently  satisfactory :  the  Hegelian 
doctrine  as  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  universe, 
and  the  kindergarten  practice  as  a  school  method. 
The  objection  is  that  there  is  no  Psychology  in  the 
system  at  all,  other  than  mere  external  observation  of 
John.  To  call  him  a  plant  does  not  advance  matters 
much,  and  manifestly  does  not  account  for  the  use  of 
cubes,  spheres,  cylinders,  and  bricks  in  the  very  precise 
way  the  kindergarten  demands.  In  truth,  Froebel's 


REVIEW   OF  PSYCHOLOGIES  43 

system  as  a  practical  school  method  is  purely  empirical. 
The  fanciful,  quasi-philosophical  way  in  which  he  seeks 
to  explain  the  relation  of  angles  and  sides,  of  forms  of 
knowledge,  of  beauty  and  of  life,  and  of  the  moral 
meanings  of  certain  physical  phenomena,  is  charming, 
but  amounts  to  nothing  more  than  a  pretty  mysticism. 

Not  Philosophy,  but  common  sense,  experience,  and 
loving  observation  have  led  Froebel  and  his  followers 
to  adopt  certain  apparatus  and  certain  methods  which 
are  excellent  in  themselves,  and  which  in  capable  hands 
produce  admirable  results.  For  this  he  deserves  all  the 
honour  that  has  been  heaped  upon  him  —  but  he  has  not 
explained  John. 

The  mere  fact  that  Froebelianism  has  obtained  such 
a  hold  upon  our  educational  system  proves  that  it  pos- 
sesses elements  of  first-rate  importance  to  the  teacher. 
But  as  a  Psychology  it  is  simply  non-existent.  It  sug- 
gests the  immense  importance  of  knowing  John  ;  which 
is  much.  It  leaves  to  others  the  task  of  supplying  this 
knowledge. 

Once  more  on  our  travels  in'  search  of  information 
about  John,  we  turn  quite  naturally  towards  Germany  ; 
for,  like  so  much  else  that  is  well  worth  having,  most 
of  our  educational  theories  are  made  in  Germany. 

It  is  true  that  the  disgrace  supposed  to  attach  to  this 
brand  is  somewhat  modified  in  the  case  of  education  by 
the  fact  that  we  have  at  least  the  skill  to  apply  the 
theories  to  our  own  conditions  ;  in  applying  them  in  a 
new  environment  we  make  them  our  own.  In  some 
respects  we  make  a  better  use  of  imported  theories  than 
did  the  founders  of  those  theories.  Herbartianism  is 


44  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

at  least  as  vital  a  force  in  the  United  States  at  this 
moment  as  it  is  in  the  Fatherland.  There  is  a  Herbart 
Club  of  altogether  abnormal  activity.  Herbartian  lit- 
erature is  springing  up  in  almost  alarming  luxuriance. 
Even  in  conservative  England  teachers  are  becoming 
alive  to  the  importance  of  this  new  light,  — a  sixty-year- 
old  torch  is  still  a  new  light  in  educational  matters,  — 
and  as  this  is  the  light  in  which  we  hope  to  make 
John  known,  we  must  introduce  Herbart  in  a  new 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

JOHANN  FRIEDRICH  HERBART  was  born  in  1776,  and 
died  in  1841.  He  has  no  history.  Philosophers  seldom 
have.  It  is  a  compensation. 

Many  teachers  seem  to  have  the  vague  notion  that 
Herbart  is  a  sort  of  continuation  school  edition  of 
Froebel.  Kindergarten  for  the  lower  classes,  Her- 
bartianism  for  the  higher.  Even  professed  Froebelians 
do  not  seem  to  be  quite  aware  that  Herbart,  so  far  from 
supporting  their  position,  is  directly  opposed  to  it.  No 
doubt  many  of  the  practical  recommendations  of  the 
two  systems  are  the  same,  as  is  natural.  We  shall  see 
later,  too,  that  from  the  broad  platform  of  Hegelian 
optimism  we  may  ultimately  reconcile  the  antagonism. 
But  as  matters  stand,  Froebelian  and  Herbartian  prin- 
ciples, as  understood  in  a  plain,  common-sense  way, 
are  diametrically  opposed  to  each  other. 

So  absolute  is  the  opposition  that  it  cannot  be  more 
fitly  described  than  by  adopting  the  comparison  by 
which  Kant  emphasized  the  gulf  that  separated  his 
system  from  those  that  preceded  it.  The  change  he 
compared  to  the  advance  from  the  Ptolemaic  to  the 
Copernican  conception  of  the  solar  system.  The  stand- 
point is  not  only  different,  it  is  exactly  the  contrary  of 
what  it  was  before.  From  the  earliest  times  philoso- 

45 


46  THE   HERBAHT1AN   PSYCHOLOGY 

pliers  have  been  racking  their  brains  to  explain  how 
the  mind  manages  to  make  ideas,  or  find  ideas,  or  contain 
ideas,  or  combine  ideas.  In  the  problem  the  mind  was 
always  "  given."  It  was  the  one  thing  in  the  universe  of 
which  the  philosophers  were  sure.  "  Cogito  ergo  sum  " 
is  but  one  of  a  series  of  ways  in  which  this  truth  has 
been  expressed.  The  trouble  always  began  about  ideas. 

To  all  this  Herbart  supplies  us  with  a  pleasant  variety. 
He  starts  with  the  ideas,  and  the  hunt  is  now  for  the 
mind.  We  have  failed  to  explain  ideas  by  the  mind  ; 
how  about  explaining  the  mind  by  ideas  ? 

You  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  is  exactly  how  Her- 
bart puts  it.  Herbart  is  a  philosopher  —  a  German 
philosopher.  The  change  of  standpoint  is  none  the  less 
real  for  that.1 

It  is  true  that  he  starts  with  a  mind,  or,  as  he  pre- 
fers to  call  it,  a  soul.  But  do  not  fear  that  the  sport 
of  the  hunt  is  to  be  spoiled  for  that.  This  "  given  " 
soul  is  no  more  a  real  soul  than  it  is  a  real  crater  of  a 
volcano.  It  has  absolutely  no  content.  It  is  not  even 
an  idea  trap :  ideas  can  slip  in  and  out  of  it  as  they 
please,  or,  rather,  as  other  ideas  please  ;  for  the  soul  has 
no  power  either  to  call,  make,  keep,  or  recall  an  idea. 
The  ideas  arrange  all  those  matters  among  themselves. 
The  mind  can  make  no  objection. 

"The  soul  has  no  capacity  nor  faculty  whatever, 
either  to  receive  or  to  produce  anything. 

1  Th.  Ribot,  in  his  La  Psychologic  Allemande  Contcmporaine,  says 
that  with  Herbart  the  mot  ou  la  conscience,  in  plain  English  the  Her- 
bcirtian  sowf,  "  n'est  que  la  somme  des  representations  actuelles.  Bref, 
elle  est  un  effet  et  non  une  cause,  un  re"sultat  et  non  un  fait  primitif." 
—  p.  24. 


THE   HERBAKTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  47 

"It  is  therefore  no  tabula  rasa  in  the  sense  that  im- 
pressions foreign  to  its  nature  may  be  made  on  it ; 
also,  it  is  no  substance  in  Leibnitz'  sense  which  in- 
cludes original  self-activity.  It  has  originally  neither 
ideas,  nor  feelings,  nor  desires ;  it  knows  nothing  of 
itself  and  nothing  of  other  things ;  further,  within  it 
lie  no  forms  of  intuition  and  thought,  no  laws  of  will- 
ing and  acting ;  nor  any  sort  of  predisposition,  how- 
ever remote,  to  all  these. 

"  The  simple  nature  of  the  soul  is  totally  unknown, 
and  forever  remains  so  ;  it  is  as  little  a  subject  for 
speculative  as  for  empirical  psychology."1 

It  is  here  that  Herbart  has  the  advantage  of  Locke. 
The  English  philosopher  got  rid  of  innate  ideas,  but 
he  could  not  free  himself  from  innate  faculties.  What 
Locke  did  for  innate  ideas  Herbart  did  for  innate  facul- 
ties.2 Burdened  by  his  assumption  of  successive  states, 
Locke  could  not  get  his  ideas  to  work  upon  each  other 
in  order  to  produce  complex  actions  and  reactions.  He 
was  therefore  driven  to  invent  or  assume  certain  powers 
of  the  mind  which  he  called  faculties,  and  which  were 
credited  with  all  the  work  that  went  on  within  the 
mind.  When  a  certain  process  was  discovered,  by  the 
act  of  introspection,  to  take  place  in  the  mind,  Locke 

1  Herbart's  Psychology  is  set  forth  in  two  works,  —  a  large  and  not 
very  difficult  treatise,  Psychologie  als  Wissenschaft,  and  a  smaller  and 
more  difficult,  because  more  condensed,  Lehrbuch  zur  Psychologie. 
Our  references  are  always  to  the  latter,  as  being  more  convenient. 
The  above  passage  is  to  be  found  in  Part  III.,  §§  152,  153. 

2  It  is  true  that  Leibnitz  was  by  implication  first  in  the  field,  but 
what  he  implies  by  his  "a  naked  possibility  is  nothing"  is  clearly 
stated  and  worked  out  by  Herbart. 


48  THE    HERBAliTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

and  his  followers  gave  this  process  a  name,  and  then 
assumed  a  faculty  corresponding  to  that  name.  A 
certain  process  called  abstraction  is  discovered  to  go 
on  within  the  mind.  This  gives  the  introspectionist 
no  trouble.  It  is  only  a  matter  of  baptizing  another 
faculty,  and  we  have  the  "faculty  of  abstraction." 
Against  this  short  and  easy  method  Herbart  made  a 
vigorous  protest,  and  swept  away  forever  from  his 
Philosophy  the  whole  brood  of  faculties. 

Thus  suddenly  deprived  of  our  faculties,  we  are 
naturally  somewhat  anxious  to  see  how  we  are  to  get 
along  without  them.  Herbart  does  not  leave  us  long 
in  suspense.  What  he  has  taken  from  the  soul  he  has 
transferred  to  the  ideas.  These  are  no  longer  the  mere 
passive  material  on  which  the  faculties  act ;  they  have 
a  vitality  all  their  own,1  indeed,  apart  from  them  there 
is  no  vitality  in  the  soul  at  all.  With  Herbart  the  soul 
is  assumed  to  be  perfectly  simple  and  homogeneous, 
its  only  power  being  a  vigorous  vis  inertice.2  Left  to 
itself,  the  soul  would  never  change  at  all.  This  is  an 
obvious  assumption  for  which  most  of  Herbart's  fol- 
lowers are  inclined  to  apologize.  Educational  writers 
who  base  their  ideas  on  his  usually  pass  very  lightly 
over  this  part  of  his  Philosophy,  if  indeed  they  mention 
it  at  all.  But  as  the  use  of  hypotheses  is  one  of  the 
essential  points  in  which  he  differs  from  the  introspec- 
tionists,  it  ought  rather  to  be  insisted  upon.  No  doubt 
this  particular  hypothesis  is  of  no  great  moment.  Her- 
bartianism  could  still  be  a  force  in  education  without 
it.  Yet  for  a  complete  understanding  of  the  mechan- 
1  Psychologie,  Part  I.  10.  2  Ibid.,  Part  III.  152. 


THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY  49 

ism   by  which  Herbart  makes   Psychology  consistent 
with  itself,  we  must  consider  it. 

This  simple  and  homogeneous  soul  is  not  left  to 
itself,  as  it  would  like  to  be.  It  is  attacked  by  the 
one  set  of  forces  that  can  have  any  effect  upon  it. 
Nothing  but  ideas 1  can  affect  th,e  soul,  and  even  when 
attacked  by  them  it  does  not  rouse  itself  up  to  inde- 
pendent action  ;  it  only  reacts  upon  the  presented 
ideas.  Once  the  soul  has  reacted  upon  an  idea,  it  can 
no  longer  be  the  same  soul  that  it  was  before.  It 
resists  change  backwards  as  vigorously  as  it  resists 
change  forwards.  It  reacts  differently  upon  the  next 
idea  that  presents  itself,  because  of  its  previous  reaction 
upon  the  first.  It  is  obvious  that,  on  this  view,  the 
soul  sinks  into  comparative  insignificance  compared 
with  the  ideas.  The  ideas  really  make  up  the  mind. 

1  This  familiar  word  seems  best  suited  to  represent  the  Herbartian 
Vorstellung.  "State  of  consciousness"  (Ribot)  is  accurate,  but 
cumbersome.  "Concept"  implies  a  theory  that  Herbart  does  not 
hold.  "  Presentation"  (Stout)  is  perfectly  accurate  so  far  as  it  goes, 
but  it  has  the  same  defect  as  idea  itself,  —  it  limits  the  meaning  too 
much  to  the  merely  cognitive  side.  No  doubt  this  is  an  error  in  the 
right  direction,  for  while  Gemuth  is  distinguished  from  Geist  (Pay., 
Part  I.  33),  we  are  told  "Das  Gemuth  aber  hat  seinen  Sitz  im  Geiste, 
oder,  Fiihlen  und  Begehren  sind  Zunachst  Zustande  der  Vorstellungen, 
und  zwar  grosserntheils  wandelbare  Zustande  der  letzteren."  We 
may,  therefore,  safely  retain  the  ordinary  English  word,  especially  as 
we  have  the  authority  of  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris  for  the  following  :  "  Vor- 
stellung means  image,  or  concept,  or  representation,  or  presentation  — 
in  short,  any  and  all  mental  products  included  under  the  English  word 
idea  in  its  widest  application." 

In  the  light  of  the  above  note  the  distinction  of  the  terms  soul  and 
mind  as  used  in  the  text  will  be  clear :  mind  is  used  where  the  cogni- 
tive aspect  is  predominant,  soul  when  the  whole  Wesen  is  implied. 
E 


50  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

The  soul  is  regarded  as  little  else  than  the  battle- 
ground of  contending  ideas. 

For,  according  to  Herbart,  the  ideas  are  always  com- 
peting with  each  other  for  a  place  in  the  soul.  But  all 
places  in  the  soiil  are  not  of  equal  value  in  the  eyes  of 
an  idea.  To  use  a  somewhat  gross  comparison,  the 
soul  may  be  regarded  under  the  figure  of  a  dome,  the 
summit  of  which  is  the  goal  of  the  ambition  of  every 
self-respecting  idea.1  The  summit  is  certainly  the  best 
place,  but  anywhere  within  the  dome  is  good,  and  the 
nearer  the  summit  of  the  dome  the  better.  When  an 
idea  gets  low  down  in  the  dome  near  the  base,  it  be- 
comes dim  and  languid,  and  the  nearer  the  base  the 
more  languid,  till  on  the  base  it  gasps  for  a  while,  and 
then  either  rises  to  higher  and  happier  levels,  or  sinks 
beyond  the  base  altogether  into  the  limbo  of  uncon- 
sciousness. 

The  base  of  the  dome  which  separates  the  realms  of 
light  and  life  from  the  nether  regions,  where  the  ideas 
gnash  their  teeth,  is  called  the  threshold.  Naturally 
we  want  to  know  on  what  principle  some  ideas  main- 
tain their  place  within  the  dome,  while  others  sink  be- 
low the  threshold. 

The  first  time  an  idea  passes  the  threshold  into  the 
dome,  his  chief  care  is  to  make  acquaintances  —  useful 

1  Herbart  must  not  be  held  responsible  for  the  figure  of  the  dome. 
He  generally  contents  himself  with  plain  unfigurative  language  on  this 
point ;  an  idea  is  simply  in  the  soul  or  in  consciousness.  I  have 
adopted  the  dome  merely  as  a  kind  of  shorthand  expression,  and  not 
as  implying  any  sort  of  theory.  It  is  particularly  to  be  noted  that  it 
lias  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Vaulting  and  Tapering —  Wol- 
bung  und  Zuspitzuny  —  referred  to  in  Psychology,  26,  d. 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  51 

acquaintances.  For  his  only  chance  of  gaining  a  foot- 
ing within  the  dome  is  by  making  suitable  connections. 

His  conduct  therefore  is  strikingly  like  that  of  an 
ambitious  young  man  on  his  introduction  into  society. 
He  finds  there  ideas  akin  to  himself,  with  whom  he 
easily  forms  fast  friendships  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  he 
encounters  certain  ideas  utterly  opposed  to  his  style,  and 
these  do  all  in  their  power  to  expel  him.  An  idea's  first 
visit  to  the  dome  seldom  lasts  very  long.  He  has  few 
friends  and  many  enemies ;  he  soon  sinks  to  the  thresh- 
old, and  passes  out  into  a  longer  or  shorter  exile. 

While  there  is  thus  among  those  ideas  as  much  in- 
triguing for  introductions,  as  much  clique-making  and 
log-rolling  as  in  any  drawing-room  or  newspaper 
office,  there  is  this  very  important  difference.  Those 
ideas  are  loyal  to  each  other.  As  soon  as  one  of  them 
has  crossed  the  threshold  into  the  sunny  land,  his  first 
thought  is  naturally  to  make  for  the  summit ;  but  his 
second  is  invariably  to  drag  with  him  those  with  whom 
he  is  more  intimately  connected.  He  never  seeks  to 
push  on  towards  the  centre  alone.  He  drags  forward 
all  his  allies  with  him  step  by  step  up  the  steep  sides  of 
the  dome.  Among  the  ideas,  as  among  cavalrymen,  it 
is  the  slowest  horse  that  gives  pace  to  the  charge.  A 
clique  of  ideas  sinks  or  swims  together. 

Each(suchjclique  of  ideas  is  known  by  the  alarming 
name  of  an  apperception  mass,  and  the  Herbartians 
maintain  that  our  whole  intellectual  life  is  spent  in 
forming  new  apperception  masses  and  in  expanding 
old  ones.  Some  ideas,  from  the  very  nature  of  things, 
are  much  more  frequently  in  the  soul  than  others. 


52  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Being  frequently  within  the  dome,  they  naturally  make 
a  larger  number  of  alliances  than  others  less  favoured, 
with  the  result  that  they  have  a  much  greater  chance 
of  being  recalled.  Any  idea  that  necessarily  enters 
into  our  daily  life  must  form  the  nucleus  of  a  very 
powerful  apperception  mass.  An  idea,  however  trivial, 
that  may  have  the  good  fortune  to  belong  to  one  of 
those  dominant  groups,  has  the  power  of  recalling  the 
whole  group  the  moment  it  gets  a  footing  within  the 
dome. 

This  may  all  seem  very  like  that  barren  set  of 
theories  we  used  to  learn  at  college  under  the  name  of 
the  Laws  of  Association.  And  if  the  above  were  the 
whole  of  the  Herbartian  theory,  the  resemblance  might 
be  maintained.  But  there  is  a  difference  between  ex- 
plaining why  a  certain  idea  has  arisen  in  the  mind,  and 
why  that  idea  rather  than  another  has  arisen  in  the 
mind.  I  utter  the  word  Carlisle  :  up  to  the  very  sum- 
mit of  the  dome  of  consciousness  of  as  many  as  hear 
me,  there  springs  an  idea  carrying  with  it  a  more  or  less 
numerous  company  of  correlated  ideas.  One  finds  his 
mind  filled  with  geographical  ideas.  "  Exactly,"  says 
the  associationist ;  "the  law  of  contiguity  holds  here." 
Another  thinks  of  Sartor  Resartus.  "  Precisely,"  says 
the  associationist,  rubbing  his  hands  ;  "law  of  similar- 
ity —  two  sounds  alike,  the  town  and  the  man. "  A 
third  thinks  of  the  church  at  home,  which  does  not 
happen  to  be  at  Carlisle.  "  Thought  you  had  me  that 
time,"  chuckles  the  associationist.  "Why,  there's 
nothing  easier.  Carlisle,  name  of  Psalm  tune,  village 
choir,  village  church.  Any  more  difficulties  ?  " 


THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  53 

Well,  yes,  there  is  a  trifling  little  difficulty.  The 
associationist  has  explained  very  clearly  why  each  of 
those  ideas  has  come  into  the  dome  of  consciousness 
in  which  it  is  found ;  but  he  neglects  to  explain  why 
the  same  idea  did  not  follow  the  same  word  in  each 
case.  Why  does  one  man  think  of  a  map,  another  of 
a  book,  a  third  of  a  church  ?  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
mere  knowledge.  Most  people  know  what  a  map  is 
and  a  church  ;  and  the  least  literary  among  us  knows 
at  any  rate  the  name  of  Sartor  Resartus.  Why  does 
the  word  Carlisle  call  up  different  ideas  in  different 
minds? 

This  problem  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  1  tackled  in  his 
theory  of  the  Secondary  Laws  of  Association,  not 
entirely  successfully,  it  is  true,  but  as  successfully  as 
his  system  will  admit  of.  For  the  fundamental  weak- 
ness of  his  school  becomes  manifest  in  a  problem  of 
this  kind.  If  ideas  merely  succeed  each  other,  we  can 
never  understand  how  they  act  upon  each  other,  if, 
indeed,  we  admit  that  they  can  act  upon  each  other  at 
all.  The  idea  of  the  word  Carlisle  is  in  the  neck  of 
the  hour-glass.  The  ideas  of  a  map,  /Sartor  Resartus, 
and  the  church  at  home  are  swarming  about  among 
thousands  of  others  in  the  upper  bulb  of  unconscious- 

1  Philosophy  of  the  Hitman  Mind,  Lect.  37.  Led  by  the  demands 
of  his  subject  and  by  his  own  clear  intellect,  Brown  has  anticipated  to 
some  extent  the  apperceptionist  position  in  his  sixth  law,  and  also  in 
his  ninth  :  "  Copious  reading  and  a  retentive  memory  may  give  to  an 
individual  of  very  humble  talent  a  greater  profusion  of  splendid  images 
than  existed  in  any  of  the  individual  minds  on  whose  sublime  concep- 
tions he  has  dwelt  till  they  have  become  in  one  sense  of  the  word  his 
own." — p.  238,  thirteenth  edition. 


54  THE   HERBAETIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

ness.  It  is  hopeless  to  try  to  discover  which  will  come 
out,  and  why. 

By  his  system  of  grouping,  Herbart  establishes  at 
least  a  plausible  theory  as  to  the  mutual  action  of  ideas 
in  recalling  each  other.  Utter  the  word  spot  to  a 
child,  and  he  naturally  looks  to  his  pinafore  to  note, 
and  if  possible  explain.  At  the  same  sound  a  medical 
student's  soul  is  filled  with  ideas  about  his  microscopic 
examination.  The  picture  of  a  dog  of  that  name  is  the 
only  answer  to  the  sound  in  the  soul  of  some  young 
lady,  while  a  billiard-player's  soul  does  not  rise  above 
a  certain  marked  ball.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The 
idea  of  spot  is  connected  in  each  case  with  a  totally 
different  apperception  mass.  There  is  here  a  complete 
absence  of  that  sense  of  vague  uncertainty  that  always 
accompanies  the  associative  explanation  of  such  cases 
of  recall.  We  are  sure  of  our  ground  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  our  knowledge  of  the  content  of  the  soul 
in  question.  Not  only  is  the  explanation  true  as  it 
stands.  It  goes  farther;  for  it  maintains  that  not  only 
will  the  word  spot  suggest  the  microscope  to  the  medi- 
cal student,  but  it  will  do  so  even  though  it  be  origi- 
nally used  in  connection  with  some  other  idea.  The 
young  lady  may  have  her  attention  aroused  by  the 
marked  billiard  ball,  but  her  soul  at  once  dismisses 
the  ball  and  welcomes  the  idea  of  her  dog.  All  this 
will  become  clearer,  however,  after  we  have  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  mechanism  of  those  apperception 
masses. 

To  begin  with,  we  want  to  know  how  apperception 
masses  can  begin  to  be  formed  at  all.  The  ideas  which 


THE    HEKBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  55 

make  up  those  masses  may  be  divided,  according  to 
Herbart,  into  three  great  classes,  as  similar,  disparate, 
or  contrary  ideas.  The  idea  of  the  taste  of  mustard  to- 
day is  practically  identical  with  the  idea  of  the  taste  of 
mustard  yesterday.  Those  two  ideas  are  similar.  The 
taste  of  mustard  is  represented  by  an  idea  which  is  dif- 
ferent from  the  idea  corresponding  to  the  taste  of  sugar, 
yet  both  are  tastes.  Those  two  ideas  are  contrary. 
The  idea  of  the  taste  of  mustard  cannot  be  at  all  com- 
pared with  the  idea  of  the  time  of  day.  Those  two 
ideas  are  therefore  called  disparate.1 

The  only  way  in  which  ideas  can  become  related  to 
each  other  is  by  being  co-presented  in  consciousness. 
In  this  co-presentation,  ideas  act  differently  according 
as  they  are  similar,  contrary,  or  disparate.  When  simi- 
lar ideas  find  themselves  together  in  consciousness,  they 
combine  into  a  homogeneous  whole,  and  by  this  com- 
bination become  more  powerful  in  resisting  attempts 
to  drive  them  out  of  consciousness.  Under  the  same 
conditions  disparate  ideas  also  combine,  but  in  a  very 
different  way.  They  do  not  form  a  unity  in  which  each 
of  the  parts  becomes  indistinguishable,  but  they  form 
a  complex  in  which  each  part  is  fitted  into  the  other 
so  as  to  form  a  more  or  less  complicated  whole.  Thus 
the  idea  of  mustard  that  I  have  to-day,  at  once  com- 

1  For  several  of  the  English  equivalents  for  Herbart's  technical 
terms  used  in  this  chapter,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  G.  F.  Stout,  whose 
luminous  articles  in  Mind,  1888,  1889,  1891,  give  the  best  account  in 
English,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  of  the  Herbartian  Psychology, 
pure  and  simple,  apart  from  educational  applications.  It  is,  indeed, 
pleasant  to  find  for  once  a  commentator  whose  work  is  really  clearer 
than  the  text  he  expounds. 


56  THE   HEKBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

bines  with  the  idea  of  mustard  that  I  had  yesterday. 
The  result  is  not  a  new  idea,  but  a  strengthening  of  the 
old  one.  This  is  called  fusion.1  On  the  other  hand, 
a  patient  who  is  ordered  to  suffer  under  a  mustard  ap- 
plication at  certain  regular  intervals  has  a  complicated 
idea,  in  which  the  ideas  of  mustard  and  the  time  of  day 
are  combined  without  being  commingled.  This  is  not 
fusion,  but  complication.2 

Contrary  ideas  introduce  a  totally  different  form  of 
action.  In  their  case  there  is  neither  fusion  nor  com- 
plication, but  actual  opposition.  The  idea  of  the  taste 
of  mustard  cannot  coexist  with  the  idea  of  the  taste  of 
sugar.  Each  wishes  to  drive  the  other  over  the  thresh- 
old altogether,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  dome  alone.  It 
is  true  that  we  can  think  of  pungent  and  sweet  at  the 
same  moment,  and  thus  we  may  imagine  that  we  are 
combining  the  ideas  of  the  two  tastes.  But  what 
really  happens  in  this  case  is  that  we  are  confounding 
the  common  element  in  the  two  tastes,  with  the  essen- 
tial element.  When  we  think  of  sweet  and  pungent 
at  the  same  moment,  we  are  not  dealing  with  the  ideas 
of  sweet  or  pungent  at  all,  but  only  with  the  fact  that 
there  are  two  tastes  which  differ  from  one  another,  but 
which  are  still  tastes.  Suppose  you  try  to  realize  in 
your  mind  the  taste  of  mustard,  in  other  words  to  raise 
the  idea  of  mustard  to  the  summit  of  the  dome,  you 
will  find  that  in  proportion  as  this  idea  becomes  clear, 
the  idea  of  the  taste  of  sugar  becomes  obscured.  If 
the  idea  connected  with  mustard  is  perfectly  vivid,  the 
other  idea  has  disappeared  altogether. 

1  Verschmelzung.  2  Complication. 


THE   HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY  57 

We  can  now  understand  how  rudimentary  appercep- 
tion masses  are  formed.  We  know  that  disparate  ideas 
can  form  complex  ideas.  Now  suppose  that  two  differ- 
ent complex  ideas  claim  admission  at  the  same  time  to 
the  dome  ;  note  what  happens.  Whatever  is  similar 
in  both,  at  once  combines  ;  whatever  is  disparate  forms 
a  new  complex  ;  while  the  contrary  elements  oppose 
each  other,  and  the  fusion  of  the  two  complex  ideas 
is  said  to  be  arrested  at  this  point.  This  combination 
of  fusion  and  arrest  is  the  source  of  all  the  activit}^  of 
the  soul. 

To  illustrate.  Suppose  a  countryman  for  the  first 
time  sees,  in  a  railway  station,  one  of  those  two-wheeled 
barrows  that  porters  use  for  conveying  luggage.  The 
idea  of  this  barrow  is  a  complex  that  seeks  to  hold  the 
summit  of  the  consciousness.  No  sooner  does  it  rise 
above  the  threshold,  however,  than  it  calls  up  another 
complex,  —  the  wheelbarrow  with  which  the  countryman 
is  familiar  at  home.  There  is  at  once  fusion  of  the 
ideas  of  carrying,  pushing  before,  two-handledness, 
woodenness,  and  whatever  other  resemblances  there 
may  be.  Some  of  the  new  circumstances  are  simple 
disparate  ideas.  The  uniform  of  the  porter,  the  nature 
of  the  load,  the  speed  at  which  the  barrow  is  pushed, 
are  all  different  from  those  found  in  the  familiar  idea, 
but  may  be  all  easily  combined  with  it,  forming  a  new 
and  wider  idea  of  a  barrow.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
two-wheeledness  of  the  barrow  before  him  struggles 
with  the  one-wheeledness  of  the  barrow  at  home.  The 
two  cannot  be  thought  together.  The  countryman  can 
readily  combine  the  ideas  of  his  barrow  and  this  uni- 


58  THE   HEHBAKTJAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

formed  porter.  He  cannot  combine  his  idea  of  his 
one-wheeled  barrow  with  this  two-wheeled  one.  One 
or  other  he  can  think  of,  but  not  both  at  once.  The 
two  complex  ideas  arrest  one  another  at  this  point. 
Fusion  and  complication  stop,  and  either  the  one  or 
the  two-wheeled  idea  wins,  or  the  idea  of  the  barrow 
stops  short  at  the  wheels.  The  same  process  takes 
place  when  the  closed  bottom  of  the  country  barrow 
is  compared  with  the  open  bottom  of  the  station 
barrow. 

Hitherto  we  have  assumed  that  ideas  do  get,  in  some 
way  or  other,  into  the  soul.  We  must  now  see  more 
exactly  how  this  comes  about.  Since  there  are  no 
innate  ideas,  the  ideas  we  find  in  the  soul  must  have 
got  in  there  from  without.  Herbart  has  no  back  door 
into  the  soul.  Ideas  come  with  him,  as  they  do  with 
other  philosophers,  from  without  through  the  senses. 
But  since  all  the  senses  are  open  to  influences  from 
without,  it  is  obvious  that  very  many  more  ideas  want 
to  get  into  the  soul  than  there  is  room  for.  Upon 
what  principle,  then,  is  admission  to  the  dome  regu- 
lated ?  It  is  here  that  'one  of  Herbart's  most  useful 
distinctions  comes  into  play.  Each  idea  may  be  re- 
garded from  two  points  of  view.  It  may  be  treated 
as  something  presented  to  the  soul  for  its  examination. 
In  this  sense  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  fur- 
niture of  the  soul.  This  is  the  aspect  that  is  usually 
present  in  the  mind  when  the  word  idea  is  used  by 
ordinary  unreflective  people.  The  idea  of  horse  is 
something  in  the  soul  which  we  can  think  and  talk 
about,  and  that  is  all,  so  far  as  the  soul  itself  is  con- 


THE   HERBAKTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY  59 

cerned.  To  be  sure,  there  is  a  whole  world  of  ques- 
tions that  may  be  raised  about  the  relation  between 
the  horse  in  our  soul  and  the  horse  in  the  street ; 
but  these  questions  do  not  in  this  connection  concern 
us.  From  this  point  of  view  the  idea  is  regarded  as 
presented  content  in  the  soul.  It  is  something  pre- 
sented, something  to  be  considered,  something  passive. 
It  is  the  idea  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
soul. 

But  the  idea  has  another  aspect.  It  may  be  regarded 
as  an  active  force,  fighting  its  way  as  well  as  may  be 
to  the  coveted  place  at  the  top  of  the  dome.  We  no 
longer  speak  of  the  idea  as  presented  content,  but  as  a 
presentative  activity.1  As  presented  content  the  idea  is 
subject  to  change,  but  only  slowly  and  as  the  result  of 
fusion  and  complication  with  other  ideas.  Our  idea  of 
horse  gradually  changes  according  to  our  widened  expe- 
rience. As  presentative  activity,  however,  the  idea  is 
liable  to  rapid  and  violent  change.  For  example,  there 
is  an  idea  in  my  mind  at  this  moment,  where  it  has  suf- 
ficient presentative  activity  to  occupy  a  place  very  near 
the  dome-top,  and  yet  in  the  soul  of  the  reader  it  has 
not  presentative  activity  enough  to  raise  it  over  the 
threshold.  When  I  write  the  word  Koli-i-noor,  the  idea 
of  that  diamond  at  once  acquires  enough  presentative 
activity  to  spring,  for  a  moment  at  least,  to  the  very 
summit  of  the  dome  of  his  consciousness. 

You  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  idea,  which  a 
moment  ago  was  entirely  without  the  dome,  had  no 

1  Psy.,  II. :  "  Das  wirkliche  Vorstellen  verwandelt  sich  in  ein  Streben 
vorzustellen." 


60  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

presentative  activity  even  in  the  shades  of  adversity. 
Every  idea  that  has  once  risen  above  the  threshold  has 
some  presentative  activity.  The  amount  of  this  activity 
is  what  differentiates  ideas.  As  presented  content  all 
ideas  have  an  equal  claim  to  the  summit  of  the  dome. 
In  itself  the  idea  of  the  Cosmos  as  an  organic  Unity  has 
no  more  right  to  the  highest  place  than  has  the  idea  of 
the  tip  of  a  lobster's  pincers.  Experience  shows  us, 
however,  that  certain  ideas  are  much  more  frequently 
in  the  soul  than  others,  and  every  time  that  an  idea  is 
recalled  to  the  soul  it  strengthens  its  chance  of  being 
called  in  again.  In  other  words,  its  presentative  activ- 
ity is  increased  every  time  it  rises  above  the  threshold. 
To  the  philosopher  the  idea  of  Cosmos  has  acquired 
quite  a  commanding  presentative  activity,  so  that  the 
slightest  suggestion  is  sufficient  to  reinstate  it  at  the 
very  summit.  Certain  other  ideas  have  also  strong  pre- 
sentative activity,  though  perhaps  not  so  strong  as 
Cosmos.  (The  nature  of  the  ideas  naturally  varies  with 
the  school  to  which  our  philosopher  belongs.)  And  so 
on  we  may  go  throughout  the  whole  list  of  ideas  that 
have  ever  entered  the  dome  of  the  philosopher's  con- 
sciousness. They  all  fall  into  a  sort  of  hierarchy,  ac- 
cording to  their  varying  presentative  activities.  If  this 
were  all,  the  activity  of  the  soul  would  disappear.  For 
the  most  powerful  idea  would  seize  the  uppermost  place, 
and  all  the  other  ideas,  in  their  varying  order,  would 
seize  a  place  as  high  as  their  might  entitled  them  to, 
till  the  threshold  was  reached,  and  all  the  weaker  ideas 
were  thrust  forever  beneath. 

This  obviously  does  not  represent  the  actual  state  of 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  61 

affairs.  No  one  idea  holds  for  long  the  summit  of  the 
dome,  just  as  no  idea  is  forever  excluded  from  the 
dome  altogether.  In  some  morbid  states,  indeed,  an 
idea  does  take  permanent  possession  of  the  dome  of 
consciousness,  with  the  result  that  all  the  ideas  must 
take  subordinate  rank  to  it,  and  must  bring  themselves, 
by  some  means  or  other,  into  harmony  with  a  state  of 
affairs  in  which  this  idee  fixe  is  the  dominating  prin- 
ciple. In  ordinary  healthy  mental  life,  however,  at 
any  moment  something  may  happen  which  increases  the 
presentative  activity  of  some  insignificant  idea,  and 
sends  it  spinning  up  to  the  very  summit.  Let  but  our 
philosopher  be  a  little  incautious  in  a  fishmonger's  shop, 
and  the  idea  of  the  tip  of  a  lobster's  nippers  may  most 
thoroughly  unseat  Cosmos  from  its  place  on  high. 

It  is  clear,  all  the  same,  that  in  every  soul  there  is  a 
sort  of  order-of -merit  arrangement  of  the  ideas,  —  an 
order  often  disturbed,  but  to  which  there  is  a  strong 
tendency  to  revert  as  soon  as  any  unusual  influence  has 
been  withdrawn.  The  ideas  are,  indeed,  in  a  state  of 
unstable  equilibrium,  which  is  easily  disturbed  and  as 
easily  recovered. 

As  soon  as  a  new  idea  claims  admittance,  there  arises 
a  struggle.  All  the  ideas  within  the  dome  that  are 
friendly  to  the  new  idea  do  their  best  to  raise  it.  All 
the  contrary  ideas  oppose  it,  and  try  to  arrest  it.  After 
the  struggle,  a  temporary  equilibrium  is  gained,  and  the 
new  idea  is  kept  on,  above,  or  below  the  threshold. 
If  an  idea  at  any  moment  occupy  the  one  of  those  three 
positions  to  which  it  is  really  entitled  in  a  state  of 
equilibrium,  the  threshold  in  relation  to  that  idea  is 


62  THE   HEEBAKTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

called  the  statical  threshold,1  while  if  the  condition  of 
equilibrium  demand  that  the  idea  should  occupy  a  posi- 
tion other  than  it  holds  at  any  given  moment,  the  thresh- 
old in  relation  to  it  is  called  the  dynamical  threshold? 

Thus  an  idea  below  the  statical  threshold  is  in  its 
proper  permanent  place,  and  is  exactly  as  if  it  did  not 
exist,  so  far  as  the  present  content  of  consciousness  is 
concerned.  An  idea  below  the  dynamical  threshold, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  unduly  depressed  by  the  tem- 
porary activity  of  another  idea  or  ideas  ;  it  is  there- 
fore of  necessity  rising,  and  will,  in  the  state  of 
equilibrium,  be  above  the  statical  threshold. 

Each  idea,  too,  at  any  moment,  has  what  is  called  its 
statical  point?  —  that  is  its  degree  of  obscuration  in 
equilibrium,  —  which  Herbart  believes  can  be  accurately 
determined  by  "an  easy  calculation  in  the  rule  of 
three." 

The  working  of  the  whole  mechanism  may  be  well 
illustrated  by  the  fortunes  of  the  ideas  of  the  different 
pieces  during  a  game  of  chess.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  game,  the  ideas  will  rank  in  something  like  the 
following  order  :  king,  queen,  rooks,  bishops,  knights, 
and  pawns,  those  last  ranking  in  a  definite  order 
according  to  the  particular  form  of  opening  favoured 
by  the  player.  No  sooner  is  the  game  begun  than  one 
of  the  pawns  takes  a  higher  rank  than  some  of  the 
pieces,  and  according  to  the  fortunes  of  the  game,  now 
a  pawn,  now  a  rook,  has  its  presentative  activity  so 

1  Die  statische  Schwelle. 

2  Die  inechanische  Schwelle.     Psy.,  1-19. 
8  Der  statische  Punkt.     Psy. ,  1-14. 


THE  HERBAKT1AN   PSYCHOLOGY  63 

quickened  as  to  send  it  right  up  to  the  summit  of  the 
dome. 

The  king  himself  must  on  occasion  fall  below  the 
dynamical  threshold,  when  some  pawn  or  piece  has 
got  into  serious  trouble.  But  his  presentative  activity 
is  so  great  that  the  moment  the  trouble  has  disappeared 
he  agains  springs  up  into  consciousness.  This  rising 
again  into  the  dome  through  the  mere  disappearance  of 
contrary  or  opposing  influences  is  called  immediate 
recall.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  one  idea  recalls 
another  with  which  it  has  on  a  previous  occasion  been 
either  fused  or  complicated,  we  have  mediate  recall. 

The  question  of  recall  suggests  the  important  problem 
of  the  state  of  ideas  that  are  out  of  consciousness. 
With  ideas,  does  out  of  soul  mean  out  of  existence  ? 
Are  they  like  the  electric  light  that  springs  in  and  out 
of  existence  on  the  turning  of  a  button  ?  They  cer- 
tainly do  not  perish,  as  the  possibility  of  their  return 
shows.  Do  they  then,  in  their  outer  darkness,  make 
coalitions  with  each  other  in  order  to  make  more  cer- 
tain their  return  to  the  sunny  realms  of  day,  on  the 
model  of  the  "  out"  party  in  politics?  Herbart's  view 
is  that  no  idea  below  the  statical  threshold  can  exer- 
cise any  influence  whatever.  Ideas,  however,  that  find 
themselves  below  the  dynamical  threshold  may  exercise 
an  influence  upon  their  more  favoured  brethren  within 
the  dome.  This  agrees  with  the  experience  most  of 
us  have  had  of  awakening  in  the  morning  with  a  clear 
knowledge  of  our  surroundings,  which  were  pleasant 
enough,  and  yet  rendered  dull  by  a  miserable  feeling 
that  there  was  something  wrong.  Our  present  sur- 


64  THE   HEUBAKTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

roundings  are  the  only  ideas  that  as  yet  occupy  the 
dome  ;  but  the  unremembered  care,  still  below  the 
dynamical  threshold,  influences  all  the  ideas  above  it. 
The  idea  of  the  care  is  rising  all  the  time,  and  it  sends 
on  its  influence  before.  The  same  sort  of  thing  occurs 
when  certain  words  come  to  our  minds,  and  we  know 
that  those  words  must  be  treated  with  respect.  We 
do  not,  at  the  time,  know  why,  but  soon  the  idea  of  the 
person  who  uttered  them  (and  whose  opinion  we  re- 
spect) makes  its  appearance  above  the  threshold.  It 
was  on  the  way  all  the  time,  and  influenced  our 
thoughts  ;  but  it  is  not  till  the  idea  is  actually  there, 
that  we  recognize  why  we  respected  the  words. 

Approaching  the  subject  from  a  new  side,  let  us  take 
the  case  of  an  idea  presented  to  the  soul  for  the  first 
time.  The  action  of  the  soul  upon  "tins  new  idea  is 
influenced,  indeed  practically  determined,  by  the  masses 
of  ideas  the  soul  already  contains.  This  action  is  known 
by  the  name  of  apperception.  There  is  no  merit  in  the 
name,  and  assimilation  might,  as  James  suggests,  do  as 
well.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  be  very  clear  as  to  the 
exact  meaning  of  whichever  term  we  adopt.  Steinthal 
defines  it  as  "the  union  of  two  mental  groups,  in  so  far 
as  it  gives  rise  to  a  cognition."  With  this,  Mr.  Stout 
so  far  agrees,  but  he  seeks  to  add  something.  His  defi- 
nition runs  "the  process  by  which  a  mental  system  ap- 
propriates a  new  element,  or  otherwise  receives  a  fresh 
determination."1 

The  final  clause  is  introduced  to  indicate  this  author's 
distinction  between  what  he  calls  anoetic  consciousness, 
1  Analytic  Psychology,  Vol.  II. 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  65 

and  noetic  synthesis.1  He  complains  that  Herbart 
speaks  of  ideas  apperceiving  each  other,  which  implies 
the  paradox  that  ideas  "  observe  or  take  cognizance  of 
each  other."  While  admitting  the  justice  of  the  criti- 
cism, we  cannot  do  more  here  than  notice  it.  For  us 
the  important  thing  is,  that  in  the  Herbartian  Psychol- 
ogy, since  apperception  means  the  acting  upon  a  new 
idea  by  all  the  ideas  at  present  in  the  soul,  and  since 
the  number  and  arrangement  of  ideas  in  no  two  souls 
are  exactly  alike,  it  follows  that  no  two  persons  can 
have  precisely  the  same  idea  of  anything. 

If  Herbartianism  did  nothing  more  than  emphasize 
the  fact  that  no  two  people  ever  have  exactly  the  same 
idea,  and  particularly  that  no  master  and  pupil  can 
ever  have  the  same  idea,  it  would  justify  its  existence. 
Teachers  are  quite  well  aware  that  children  do  not 
understand  big  or  unusual  words;  but  teachers  too 
often  fail  to  consider  that  in  the  case  of  words  with 
which  children  are  perfectly  familiar,  there  may,  there 
must,  be  a  different  idea  in  the  child's  mind  from  that 
in  the  master's. 

No  doubt  it  may  be  objected  that  this  is  admitted  in 
the  prevailing  Froebelian  principles.  Nothing  is  com- 
moner among  kindergartners  than  the  cry  for  things, 
not  words.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  cry  would  only 
substitute  one  fallacy  for  another,  but  in  the  meantime 
let  that  pass.  What  interests  us  here  is,  that  things 

1  With  this  distinction  compare  Wundt's  definition  :  "Der  Eintritt 
einer  Vorstellung  in  das  innere  Blickfeld  wollen  wir  die  Perception, 
ihren  Eintritt  in  den  Blickpunkt  die  Apperception  nennen."  —  Grund- 
zilge  der  Physiologischen  Psychologic  (1880),  Vol.  II.,  p.  206. 


66  THE    HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

are  not  a  whit  better  than  words,  in  ensuring  that  the 
same  idea  shall  be  called  up  in  two  minds.  Almost 
every  teacher  thinks  that  when  he  has  shown  a  thing  to 
his  class,  he  has  done  the  highest,  the  best,  the  ultimate, 
in  teaching.  Yet  listen  to  Jacotot.  "  What  is  a  mas- 
ter ?  "  he  asks  scornfully.  "  Isn't  he  a  man  who  asks 
another  —  Don't  you  see  what  I  am  showing  you?  " 1 

Being  in  an  oratorical  mood,  Jacotot  does  not  pause 
for  a  reply.  The  schoolmaster  in  his  work  is  not  in  such 
a  hurry,  and  insists  upon  an  answer  to  this  question, 
"  Don't  you  see  what  I  am  showing  you  ?  "  Naturally 
the  boy  says  "yes,"  and  equally  naturally  his  answer  is 
false. 

The  average  child  does  not  see  what  the  master  is 
showing  him.  Froebelianism  drives  the  teacher  from 
words  to  pictures,  from  pictures  to  models,  from  models 
to  actual  objects,  and,  after  all,  Herbartianism  comes 
along,  and  points  out  that  the  living  sheep  that  an  en- 
terprising schoolmistress  has  set  scampering  about  the 
floor  of  her  infant  room,  does  not  ensure  that  teacher 
and  pupil  shall  speak  of  the  same  idea,  when  they  talk 
of  a  sheep. 

The  popular  notion  is  that  knowledge  has  to  be 
carefully  prepared  beforehand  by  the  teacher,  and  then 
judiciously  stuffed  into  a  suitable  place  in  the  pupil's 
mind,  a  sort  of  mental  left-luggage  office,  there  to  be 
left  till  called  for.  If  the  mind  is  not  regarded  as 
entirely  passive  in  the  process  of  acquiring  knowledge, 
it  is  supposed  to  be  active  in  nothing  beyond  the  steve- 
dore work  of  lumping  the  cargo  aboard.  The  mind  is 
1  Enseignement  Universel,  seventh  edition,  p.  55. 


THE   HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY  67 

assumed  to  have  as  little  power  to  change  a  fact  that 
it  is  acquiring,  as  a  quay  labourer  to  change  a  granite 
block  he  is  manipulating. 

The  Herbartian,  on  the  other  hand,  has  none  of  that 
reverence  for  hard  facts,  so  characteristic  of  the  "  plain 
man."  Each  soul  moulds  its  own  facts  :  — 

"  If  it  be  not  fact  for  me, 
What  care  I  how  fact  it  be  ?  " 

Every  man  is  his  own  fact-maker,  whether  he  will 
or  no. 

It  is  impossible  to  escape  from  the  thrall  of  the  irri- 
tating crew  included  under  the  general  term  "the 
ancients."  The  modern  who  is  wise  does  not  make 
the  attempt,  and  is  always  prepared  to  have  his  theories 
traced  back  to  their  primary  bacillus  in  Plato  or  his 
predecessors. 

A  very  rudimentary  knowledge  of  Greek  Philosophy 
is  enough  to  prevent  us  from  regarding  this  fact-making 
theory  as  any  new  thing.  It  has  been  said  before  in 
somewhat  different  words,  and  the  echo  of  the  original 
saying  has  kept  rolling  down  through  all  the  ages  to 
the  present  day. 

Through  the  philosophic  quagmire  that  corresponds 
to  the  phrase  "  relativity  of  knowledge,"  I  am  reluctantly 
compelled  to  invite  my  reader  to  pass  in  the  hope  of 
reaching  firm  ground  beyond. 

The  trouble  appears  to  have  begun  when  Protagoras 
felt  called  upon  to  maintain  that  "  Man  is  the  measure 
of  all  things,  of  things  that  are  that  they  are,  of  things 
that  are  not  that  they  are  not."  Those  who  wish  to 


68  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

throw  the  blame  farther  back  still,  have  only  to  call  in 
Heraclitus  with  his  "eternal  flux  of  all  things,"  but 
Protagoras  will  probably  serve  our  purpose  sufficiently 
well.  In  his  criticism  Plato  admits  that  Protagoras  is 
right  so  far  as  sense  impressions  are  concerned,  but 
denies  any  wider  application  of  the  "measure." 

Common  sense  and  modern  science  agree  with  Plato. 
It  is  true  that  in  Reid's  comfortable  dogmatism  we  are 
assured  that  we  perceive  the  outer  world  exactly  as  it 
is,  and  therefore  we  all  perceive  it  alike.  But  Locke 
admits  that  the  outer  world  may  be  modified  in  certain 
aspects,  —  colour,  smell,  sound,  taste,  —  but  in  other 
more  fundamental  respects  remain  unchanged.  Ac- 
cording to  this  view,  man  is  the  measure  of  colours, 
smells,  sounds,  and  tastes,  but  not  of  sizes  and  shapes. 
As  to  the  negative  part  of  this  proposition  there  is 
difference  of  opinion;  but  the  truth  of  the  positive  part 
is  universally  acknowledged. 

Though  man  is  thus  admitted  to  be  the  measure  of 
all  things  of  sense  impression,  he  is  only  a  measure  for 
himself.  As  a  standard  of  measurement,  he  is  there- 
fore a  failure,  and  ingenious  people  have  been  driven 
to  attempt  to  reduce  human  measures  to  a  com- 
mon denominator.  .Certain  forms  of  sense  impression 
lend  themselves  readily  to  arithmetical  calculation. 
Colours  and  sounds  vary  according  to  the  number  of 
vibrations  within  a  given  time,  and  it  has  been  found 
possible  to  fix  a  maximum  and  a  minimum  of  vibrations 
for  each  individual  within  which  the  sense  operates, 
while  above  and  below  those  limits  the  vibrations  pro- 
duce no  effect.  The  difference  between  individuals  as 


THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY  69 

thus  tested  is  sometimes  very  great,  amounting  to 
thousands  of  vibrations  per  second.  Instruments  are 
being  invented  and  perfected  for  still  more  accurately 
determining  such  differences.  To  this  class  belong  the 
algometer  and  the  plethismograph  mentioned  in  last 
chapter. 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  fact  that  observers  in 
astronomical  stations  have  to  be  examined  in  order  to 
get  what  is  called  their  "personal  equation."  This 
indicates  the  rate  of  speed  at  which  a  disturbance 
passes  along  the  nerves  to  and  from  the  brain,  and  the 
relative  slowness  or  quickness  has  to  be  allowed  for  in 
all  calculations  based  on  the  observations  of  the  person 
whose  "  personal  equation  "  is  in  question. 

The  familiar  use  of  this  convenient  phrase  as  trans- 
ferred to  all  sorts  of  circumstances,  is  a  kind  of  philo- 
logical argument  in  favour  of  Protagoras'  doctrine  as 
applied  beyond  the  sphere  of  mere  sense  impression. 
This  supports  the  Herbartian  doctrine  which  applies 
Protagoras'  principle  even  in  cases  in  which  the  sense 
impressions  do  not  differ.  Assuming  the  impossible 
case  of  two  men  who  have  their  whole  physical  organi- 
zation absolutely  alike,  we  cannot  assume  that  they  will 
apperceive  the  same  idea  in  absolutely  the  same  way. 
The  way  in  which  an  idea  is  apperceived  depends  upon 
the  ideas  already  in  the  apperceiving  soul,  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  are  arranged  in  that  soul.  As  this 
can  never  be  exactly  the  same  in  any  two  souls,  it 
follows  that  no  two  persons  can  ever  have  precisely 
the  same  idea  of  anything.  No  doubt  in  certain  cases 
the  difference  may  be  very  slight,  yet  identity  is  im- 


70  THE    HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

possible;  while  wide  differences  are  the  rule,  not  the 
exception. 

It  may  be  objected  that  if  this  be  so,  the  work  of  the 
world  could  not  be  carried  on  ;  we  would  always  be  at 
cross-purposes  with  each  other.  Language  would  be- 
come an  impossibility  if  we  did  not  attach  the  same 
meaning  to  the  terms  we  use. 

When  we  wish  to  express  the  extreme  of  contentious 
contradiction  on  the  part  of  any  one,  we  say  that  he 
would  maintain  that  black  was  white.  Yet  this  classic 
case  of  absolute  difference  might,  for  all  we  know  to 
the  contrary,  represent  merely  a  difference  of  apper- 
ception masses.  What  is  black  to  me  may  appear 
white  to  you,  and  yet  neither  of  us  know  that  he  has  a 
conception  different  from  the  other.  When  I  utter  the 
word  black,  the  impression  white  may  always  arise  in 
your  soul ;  when  I  say  white,  the  opposite.  One  is  apt 
to  suppose  at  first  sight  that  the  ordinary  intercourse 
of  life  could  not  be  carried  on  without  at  once  bringing 
to  light  the  difference  between  our  impressions. 

But  consider.  You  ask  me  to  black  your  boots,  and 
expect  me  to  bring  the  whiting  pail  to  do  it  with.  But 
you  forget  that  your  black  boots  appear  to  me  to  be 
white,  so  I  get  my  whiting  bottle,  which  is  your  black- 
ing bottle,  and  no  trouble  arises.  In  other  words,  I 
call  all  white  things  black,  and  all  black  things  white; 
and  so  long  as  I  do  this  consistently,  no  confusion  can 
arise :  — 

"  We  called  the  chess-board  black,  we  call  it  white." 

Further  illustration  of  this  point  will  be  given  later. 
In  the  meantime  it  is  important  to  observe  that  apper- 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  71 

ception  is  not  mere  perception.  It  is  perception  in  the 
light  of  the  whole  present  content  of  the  soul.  The  whole 
available  apperception  masses  of  the  soul  fall  upon  the 
new  material,  and  work  it  up  into  a  new  compound. 

Each  new  idea  that  enters  the  soul  either  encounters 
friends  there  or  straightway  falls  under  the  threshold. 
When  I  write  the  word  hiro,  the  idea  that  rises  in  re- 
sponse, in  the  soul  of  the  reader,  probably  meets  no 
welcoming  idea,  and  if  no  more  be  said,  the  idea  of  hiro 
wanders  slowly  down  and  down  till  it  disappears  below 
the  threshold,  in  all  probability  never  to  return.  But 
if  I  tell  you  that  it  is  the  only  Red  Indian  verb  I  know, 
you  at  once  find  it  a  place  in  the  apperception  mass 
which  is  gathered  round  the  idea  Red  Indian;  the 
apperception  mass  connected  with  verb  also  hurries  up 
to  welcome  the  new  idea.  When  you  are  told  further 
that  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  "  I  have  spoken,"  a 
fresh  set  of  apperception  masses  begins  to  take  an 
interest  in  the  new  idea.  One  of  those  masses  has  to 
do  with  grammatical  constructions  and  with  vocal 
sounds ;  another,  and  in  this  case  the  more  important, 
deals  with  Fenimore  Cooper  and  his  braves,  who  always 
conclude  their  speeches,  as  every  well-educated  school- 
boy knows,  with  the  classic  words,  the  sort  of  Red 
Indian  Amen  —  I  have  spoken.  When  the  further  in- 
formation is  supplied  that  this  word  was  used  by  the 
Mohawks,  and  that  the  Frenchmen  who  first  came  in 
contact  with  this  troublesome  tribe,  misled  by  the  fre- 
quency with  which  the  word  was-  used,  thought  it  had 
something  to  do  with  the  name  of  the  people,  and 
called  them  Iroquois,  the  chances  are  that  the  word 


72  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

hiro  will  represent  an  idea  that  has  a  firm  hold  in  the 
mind,  and  that  thereafter  it  will  have  sufficient  present- 
ative  activity  to  spring  into  the  dome  as  soon  as  any 
of  its  newly  formed  acquaintances  make  their  appear- 
ance there. 

We  see  that  the  same  idea  holds  a  place  in  very 
different  apperception  masses.  It  may  belong  to  sev- 
eral powerful  masses,  and  to  many  feeble  masses.  But 
in  those  masses  it  may  occupy  a  very  different  place. 
Take,  for  example,  the  idea  Herbart,  which  we  will 
assume  to  have  been  just  now  apperceived;  that  is,  it  is 
taken  into  your  mind  and  has  had  its  place  fixed  among 
the  ideas  there  assembled.  Take  the  case  of  a  young  and 
not  very  well-read  teacher.  In  his  mind  Herbart  takes 
its  place  in  the  apperception  mass  that  clusters  round 
the  idea  of  school  management.  In  that  mass  the  idea 
holds  rather  a  high  rank,  and  as  often  as  school  man- 
agement holds  the  dome  of  consciousness  the  idea  of 
Herbart  has  an  exceedingly  good  chance  to  reach  the 
summit.  But  the  idea  also  has  a  place  in  other  ap- 
perception masses  where  its  rank  is  of  the  humblest. 
It  holds  a  very  subordinate  place  in  the  mass  that  in- 
cludes lectures  of  all  sorts ;  it  hovers  over  the  surface 
of  the  mass  that  centres  in  biography  ;  it  has  a  very 
slight  claim  on  the  mass  gathered  round  the  idea  of 
man  in  general ;  it  holds  an  average  place  among  the 
dense  masses  that  represent  the  dimly  known  and  none 
too  pleasant. 

In  the  mind  of  the  well-informed  teacher  the  idea  of 
Herbart  has  a  much  better  chance.  It  ranks  in  the 
apperception  masses  corresponding  to  Germany,  phi- 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  73 

losophers,  educationists,  theorists,  faddists,  training, 
American  Review,  De  Garmo,  Froebel,  Socrates,  and  an 
etcetera  that  would  require  a  volume  to  fill  out. 

On  this  view  the  function  of  the  teacher  becomes 
clear ;  for,  unlike  most  Psychologies,  Herbart's  has  an 
obvious  and  immediate  bearing  upon  education.  The 
soul  is  in  the  teacher's  hands,  inasmuch  as  the  apper- 
ception masses  can  be  made  and  modified  by  the 
teacher.  The  mind  is  no  doubt  active,  very  active,  but 
this  activity  can  be  regulated  by  Avhat  has  gone  before 
in  the  experience  of  the  soul  in  question. 

This  word  activity  has  been  used  by  writers  on  this 
subject  in  a  very  loose  way,  so  loose,  indeed,  that  Bradley 
calls  it  "scandalous."  To  keep  our  position  clear,  we 
cannot  do  better  than  adopt  the  definition  of  G.  F. 
Stout  in  his  Analytic  Psychology:  "Mental  activity 
exists  when  and  so  far  as  process  in  consciousness  is 
the  direct  outcome  of  previous  process  in  conscious- 
ness."1 If  the  mind  is  active  in  this  sense,  it  is  hard 
to  find  room  for  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher.  But  Stout  a  few  pages  farther  on  goes  on  to 
say  "  It  is  impossible  to  find  any  bit  of  mental  process 
which  is  determined  purely  from  within."2 

Given  a  certain  idea,  the  soul  must  act  upon  it  in  a 
certain  way,  and  with  this  the  teacher  cannot  interfere. 
The  present  process  of  consciousness  is  determined  by 
previous  processes.  The  child  who  comes  to  school  at, 
say,  five  years  of  age  brings  with  him  an  enormous 
number  of  limitations  of  the  teacher's  power.  Every 
idea  in  that  little  head  is  a  force  with  which  the  teacher 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  148,  Vol.  I.  2  Page  155. 


74  THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

must  reckon.  His  first  duty  is  obviously  to  discover 
as  much  as  possible  about  the  contents  of  John's  soul. 
Only  so  far  as  he  succeeds  in  this  is  he  able  to  under- 
stand the  reaction  of  John's  soul  upon  any  given  idea. 
The  very  inevitableness  of  the  soul's  reaction  is  the 
teacher's  chief  aid.  Here  he  finds  the  fulcrum  for  his 
lever.  The  rest  of  his  work  is  actual  building  up, 
edification. 

Herbart's  view  of  the  comparatively  greater  activity 
of  the  ideas  than  of  the  soul  on  which  they  react  is 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  statements  of  writers  of  op- 
posing schools.  The  associationists  always  admit  that 
the  soul  is  far  from  being  the  master  of  its  ideas. 
Then,  in  his  Principles  of  Psychology,1  W.  James  quotes 
with  approval  from  Hodgson  and  Bain.  Says  Hodg- 
son :  "  Volition  has  no  power  of  calling  up  images,  but 
only  of  rejecting  and  selecting  from  those  offered  by 
spontaneous  redintegration."2  Bain's  statement  is: 
"The  outgoings  of  the  mind  are  necessarily  random. 
The  end  alone  is  clear  to  the  view,  and  with  that  there 
is  a  perception  of  the  fitness  of  every  passing  sugges- 
tion. The  volitional  energy  keeps  up  the  attention  on 
the  active  search,  and  the  moment  that  anything  in 
point  rises  before  the  mind,  it  springs  upon  that  like 
a  wild  beast  upon  its  prey." 

It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  importance  of  this 
view  from  the  teacher's  standpoint.  If  the  mind  must 
wait  till  the  right  idea  comes  along,  what  an  enormous 
importance  must  be  attached  to  the  theory  of  appercep- 

1  Page  589,  Vol.  I. 

2  Hodgson  uses  the  term  in  the  Hamiltonian  sense. 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  75 

tion  masses.  If  the  idea  that  the  soul  ought  to  choose 
is  not  there  to  choose,  what  can  the  soul  do  but  choose 
amiss?  Here  Herbartianism  appears  to  great  advan- 
tage. During  the  process  of  education  when  the  soul 
happens  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  a  certain  idea,  the 
teacher,  knowing  what  is  going  on  in  the  soul,  and  the 
laws  according  to  which  its  mechanism  works,  can 
readily  increase  the  presentative  activity  of  the  idea  in 
question,  and  send  it  right  up  to  the  dome,  where,  as 
Bain  would  say,  it  is  seized  as  by  a  wild  beast,  and 
assimilated. 

In  the  other  and  more  important  case,  the  case  of  the 
pupil  who  has  finished  what  is  known  as  his  education, 
the  results  of  the  Herbartian  method  are  seen  to  even 
greater  advantage.  The  best-educated  human  being  is 
he  who  has  the  biggest  and  best-arranged  apperception 
masses  dealing  with  the  life  he  is  likely  to  lead.  Take 
the  case  of  a  young  doctor  before  a  sudden  "  accident  " 
case.  If  he  cannot  at  will  call  up  the  idea  that  is 
likely  to  be  of  most  service  to  him,  but  can  recognize 
it  when  it  appears,  it  obviously  follows  that  he  is 
utterly  dependent  on  his  masses.  If  the  right  idea 
does  not  form  part  of  one  of  his  important  masses,  it 
may  never  reach  the  threshold  at  all,  or  only  too  late  to 
be  of  any  practical  use.  A  doctor's  usefulness,  then, 
depends  not  merely  upon  the  number  of  ideas  he  has  in 
his  soul,  but  also  and  even  more  upon  the  way  in  which 
they  have  been  grouped  so  as  to  suggest  each  other  at 
the  proper  moment.  So  with  what  is  usually  known  as 
conduct,  in  the  moral  sense.  What  do  we  mean  when 
we  say  that  a  man  is  under  temptation  ?  Is  it  not  simply 


76  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

a  name  for  the  state  of  a  man  within  whose  soul  passes 
a  series  of  ideas  each  seeking  realization,  yet  each,  re- 
garded from  a  certain  point  of  view,  evil  ?  If  powerful, 
compact,  well-organized  masses  of  moral  ideas  are  present 
in  the  mind,  the  isolated,  though  intrinsically  powerful, 
ideas  of  evil  are  rapidly  dismissed.  The  momentary 
presentative  activity  of  the  evil  idea  sends  it  momen- 
tarily over  its  dynamical  threshold  up  to  the  very  sum- 
mit, but  equilibrium  is  soon  restored  by  the  contrary 
ideas  of  good  arresting  the  evil  idea,  and  allowing  the 
idea  of  good  to  rise  into  the  dome  by  immediate  recall. 
The  state  of  a  soul  that  is  ill-supplied  with  good  ideas 
calls  for  little  comment.  Such  a  soul  can  hardly  be 
said  to  be  tempted.  The  soul  must  be  continually 
choosing  among  the  ideas  presented  to  it,  and  if  the 
supply  of  good  ideas  is  inadequate,  it  must  of  necessity 
choose  the  evil. 

Dr.  Paulhan  has,  by  quite  a  different  route,  arrived 
at  pretty  much  the  same  conclusions  as  Herbart  in  the 
matter  of  the  systematization  of  ideas.  Starting  from 
the  English  association  position,  with  which  he  was  once 
in  full  accord,  he  worked  his  way  to  his  two  great  laws. 
First,  the  law  of  systematic  association:  "  Every  psychi- 
cal fact  tends  to  associate  to'  itself,  and  cause  to  develop, 
the  psychical  facts  which  may  harmonize  with  it,  which 
may  strive  with  it  towards  a  common  goal  or  for 
complementary  ends,  which,  along  with  it,  may  be  able 
to  form  a  system."  1 

The  second  law  deals  with  inhibition  or  arrest: 
"  Every  psychical  phenomenon  tends  to  prevent  the 
1  L'Activite  Mentale,  p.  88. 


THE   HERBA11TIAN   PSYCHOLOGY  77 

production  or  development,  or  to  cause  the  disappear- 
ance of  psychical  phenomena  which  cannot  be  united  to 
itself  according  to  the  law  of  systematic  association, 
that  is  to  say,  which  cannot  be  united  with  it  for  a 
common  end."  1 

Those  two  laws,  with  the  principle  of  finality  to  bind 
them  together,  give  Paulhan  a  system  that  practically 
coincides  with  Herbartianism,  and  which,  while  thus 
strengthening  the  Herbartian  conclusions,  should  also 
diminish  the  Herbartian  pretensions. 

On  yet  another  point  recent  Psychology  is  quite  in 
accord  with  the  Herbartian.  The  mind  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  a  mere  succession  of  states.  The  word 
continuum,  as  found  in  Ward  and  elsewhere,  has  become 
popular.  We  do  not  now  treat  each  thought  as  it 
arises  as  the  whole  content  of  the  soul  at  that  moment. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  makes  a  marvel  of  our  having 
three  distinct  trains  of  thought  going  on  at  the  same 
time.  There  is  the  surface  thought  as  represented  by 
the  not  too  interesting  conversation  that  we  are  carry- 
ing on;  underneath  is  the  series  of  reflections  in  which 
we  criticise  the  man  who  is  boring  us  with  his  talk  and 
pity  ourselves  for  having  to  make  talk  to  him;  at  the 
very  depths  of  our  being  is  the  growling  refrain  of 
duty  neglected,  warning  us  that  all  this  upper  talking 
is  very  well  in  its  way,  but  if  we  do  not  mind  we  shall 
be  "Late  at  Lecture,  Late  at  Lecture." 

What  Holmes  treats  as  very  wonderful  is  now  the 
commonplace  of  Psychology.  We,  indeed,  push  the 
thing  farther,  and  ask  why  stop  at  three  trains  of 
1 1,'Activite  Mentale,  p.  221, 


78  THE    HERB ARTI AN    PSYCHOLOGY 

thought  ?  Why  should  we  limit  the  number  at  all  ? 
We  used  to  smile  incredulously  when  we  read  of 
Caesar  doing  four  things  at  once,  but  Psychology  has 
got  far  beyond  that  stage,  and  tells  us  weird  tales 
of  consciousness  being  divided  up  into  perfectly  inde- 
pendent sections,  which  can  be  switched  off  and  on 
after  the  fashion  of  the  electric  light. 

Interesting  as  this  ill-understood  pathological  hypno- 
tism may  be,  it  does  not  as  yet  concern  us.  The  nor- 
mal consciousness,  with  which  alone  the  teacher  has  to 
do,  may  remain  an  organic  whole,  and  yet  admit  of  the 
coexistence  within  it  of  ideas  in  very  different  stages 
of  clearness.  Writers  whose  general  principles  are 
quite  opposed  to  those  of  Herbart  have  adopted  a  clas- 
sification of  ideas  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  his  theo- 
ries. Professor  James  figures  consciousness  under  the 
form  of  a  wave,  and  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan,  in  his 
admirable  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology,  works 
out  this  figure  in  all  its  details,  and  even  goes  the 
length  of  giving  a  plan,  elevation,  and  cross-section  of 
the  wave  of  consciousness.1  All  ideas  that  are  on  the 
pointed  crest  of  this  wave  are  said  to  be  focal;  all  ideas 
in  the  body  of  the  wave  are  classed  as  marginal  or  sub- 
conscious. At  a  certain  depth  the  wave  is  crossed  by 
a  line,  named  in  Herbartian  language  the  Threshold 
of  Consciousness.  Below  the  threshold  the  wave  is 
still  continued,  but  the  ideas  in  this  portion  are  labelled 
infra-conscious  or  extra-marginal.  "This  infra-conscious- 
ness," he  says,2  "is,  in  my  view,  not  merely  nega- 
tive but  something  positive  and  existent  —  what,  for 
1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  13  and  14.  a  Ibid.,  p.  34. 


THE   HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY  79 

want  of  better  terms,  we  may  call  the  not-yet  or  not- 
quite  conscious,  and  yet  of  the  same  order  of  existence 
as  that  which  lies  above  the  threshold."  All  this  is 
quite  in  the  lines  of  the  Herbartian  system,  even  to 
the  infra-conscious  elements  which  clearly  correspond 
to  ideas  below  the  dynamical  threshold  as  opposed  to 
those  under  the  statical.1 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Professor  Morgan  ex- 
plains his  phenomena  on  quite  other  principles  than 
those  found  in  Herbart.  But  those  principles,  impor- 
tant and  interesting  as  they  undoubtedly  are,  do  not 
concern  us  here,  any  more  than  do  the  mathematical 
parts  of  Herbart's  Psychology,  which  we  have  up  till 
now  shamefully  neglected.  Herbart  believed  that  the 
whole  of  the  mental  action  and  reaction  could  be  set 
forth  in  mathematical  equations.  This,  indeed,  is  a 
fundamental  part  of  his  system,  as  set  forth  in  the  title 
of  his  Psychology  as  a  Science  founded  for  the  First  Time 
on  Experience,  Metaphysics,  and  Mathematics.  Even  if 
Kant  were  wrong  in  his  demonstration  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  ever  reducing  Psychology  to  the  rank  of  an 
exact  natural  science,  Herbart  was  premature  in  his 
attempt.  Thirty-six  years  more  were  to  elapse  before 

1  The  community  between  the  two  systems  is  further  shown  by  the 
ease  with  which  both  may  be  applied  to  the  needs  of  education.  In 
his  practical  and,  despite  the  subject  and  title,  most  interesting  Psy- 
chology for  Teachers,  Professor  Morgan  has  laid  down  a  body  of 
educational  principles  which  might  have  very  well  been  built  upon 
Herbartian  foundations.  The  book  is  of  great  value  in  itself,  but 
from  our  point  of  view  it  has  the  additional  advantage  of  establishing 
our  positions  by  the  indirect  evidence  of  a  writer  who  has  come  to  his 
conclusions  by  an  entirely  different  line  of  argument. 


80  THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

Fechner  succeeded  in  failing  in  the  same  enterprise  ; 
and  even  yet  .there  are  those  who  are  not  quite  sure 
that  Psychology  has  attained  to  the  accuracy  of  the 
unanimous  science  of  Numbers.  In  any  case,  we  find 
it  convenient  to  omit  this  part  of  Herbart's  work  alto- 
gether. His  involution  and  evolution  of  thought  by 
numbers,  and  his  arrangement  of  ideas  in  series,  have  a 
terribly  convincing  air  to  the  non-mathematical  mind. 
But  my  readers  will  be  happier  without  this  side  of 
Herbart,  though  no  doubt  the  old  philosopher  would 
turn  in  his  grave  did  he  know  that  we  were  dropping 
what  he  considered  the  most  essential  part  of  his  work. 
It  is  not  given  even  to  mathematical  philosophers  to 
understand  fully  the  Perspective  of  Life. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   THEORY   OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY 

"  ALL  babies  are  born  good,"  says  Lord  Palmerston,1 
echoing  the  sentiment  that  with  Rousseau  passed  for 
philosophy,  and  that  Wordsworth  worked  up  into 
standard  poetry.  It  is  true  that  the  Chinese,  with 
that  exasperating  way  of  theirs,  have  anticipated  this 
thought,  and  embodied  it  in  their  first  reading-book. 
What  we  regard  as  a  rather  smart  remark  they  have 
reduced  to  the  lowest  level  of  the  commonplace  ;  for 
the  very  first  sentence  a  little  Chinaman  reads  in  his 
Standard  I.  Celestial  Reader  is  :  — 

"  Men  at  their  birth  are  by  nature  radically  good." 

Long  before  this  opinion  gained  ground  in  the  West,2 
at  an  early  period  in  the  world's  history,  when  wisdom 
must  have  been  much  more  uncommon  than  now  (out- 
side of  China,  be  it  always  understood),  a  certain  Bias 
of  Priene  earned  his  place  among  the  Seven  Wise  Men 
of  Greece  by  proclaiming  the  depressing  truth  :  Most 
men  are  bad. 

Any  teacher  who  ventures  to  place  those  two  state- 
ments side  by  side,  and  draw  the  natural  inference, 
must  feel  called  upon  to  take  his  place  in  the  dock  and 
plead.  For  the  period  between  babyhood  and  manhood 

1  Vide  .Spencer,  Education,  p.  96. 

2  F.  V.  N.  Painter,  History  of  Education,  p.  12. 
G  81 


82  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

is  precisely  the  period  for  which  the  teacher  is  responsi- 
ble. If  we  spend  our  lives  in  turning  good  babies  into 
bad  men,  then  is  our  craft,  indeed,  in  danger. 

Before  putting  in  the  necessary  plea  of  "  Not  guilty," 
we  would  question  the  validity  of  the  charge.  Before 
trying  a  man  for  murder,  it  is  well  to  see  that  the 
corpse  is  really  dead.  As  a  provisional  plea,  we  admit 
that  we  are  responsible  for  the  school  life  of  the  afore- 
said baby  who  has  turned  out  a  bad  man  —  quoad  ultra, 
denied.  In  other  words,  all  babies  are  not  born  good, 
and  most  men  are  not  bad.  Certainly  the  babies  who 
come  to  our  schools  have  left  far  behind  them  the 
clouds  of  glory  they  are  credited  with  trailing  after 
them  from  the  higher  realm  from  which  they  have 
come.  As  a  counter  plea,  if  we  were  ill-natured,  we 
might  carry  the  war  into  the  enemies'  country,  and 
bring  up  the  artillery  of  the  good  old-fashioned  doc- 
trine of  Original  Sin.  In  the  light  of  Total  Depravity, 
we  can  not  only  throw  off  the  responsibility  for  the 
most  men  who  are  bad,  but  we  may  actually  claim 
some,  at  least,  of  the  credit  for  the  minority  who  are 
good.1 

All  this  we  feel  to  be  mere  skirmishing ;  but  there 
are  those  who  take  the  matter  more  seriously.  The 
Jesuits  are  said  to  have  proclaimed  that  if  they  were 
entrusted  with  the  first  seven  years  of  a  child's  life, 
they  cared  not  who  attended  to  the  remainder  of  his 
education.  He  would  be  a  Jesuit  to  the  end  of  his 

1  Cf.  Comenius,  Great  Didactic,  Chap.  V.,  where  he  quotes  Seneca  : 
"  Man  is  not  good,  but  becomes  so,  as,  mindful  of  his  origin,  he  strives 
toward  equality  with  God." 


THE   THEORY   OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY  83 

days.  Comenius,  too,  expressed  the  opinion  of  a  large 
section  of  the  teachers  of  his  time,  when  he  said  that 
the  main  work  of  a  school  is  man-making.  "  I  call  a 
school  that  fulfils  its  function  perfectly,  one  which  is  a 
true  officina  hominum"1  a  man  manufactory. 

Uncomfortable  tales,  also,  come  floating  up  from 
antiquity  to  show  that  old  world  opinion  was  strongly 
on  Comenius'  side.  We  have  all  heard,  not  without 
indignation,  of  the  "  whipping  boy,"  whose  unhallowed 
hide  paid  the  penalty  every  time  his  young  master,  the 
Lord's  Anointed,  strayed  from  the  paths  of  virtue. 
But  there  are  darker  tales  still,  and  of  more  evil  omen 
for  us,  which  tell  of  masters  being  punished  for  the 
sins  of  their  pupils  —  a  most  objectionable  form  of  pay- 
ment by  results.  In  China,  where  we  have  seen  that 
men  are  "  by  nature  radically  good,"  the  master  seems 
to  be  held  personally  responsible  for  any  change  in  this 
highly  desirable  state  of  affairs.  With  a  fine  devotion 
to  logical  consistency,  those  Chinamen,  in  cases  of  parri- 
cide, execute,  we  are  told,  not  only  the  parricide  himself, 
but  also  his  teacher. 

On  Froebelian  principles  it  is  certainly  very  irra- 
tional to  hang  a  master  because  his  pupil  has  committed 
a  murder ;  but  if  Herbart  is  to  be  followed,  the  case  for 
the  master  is  not  so  clear.  This  matter  decidedly  needs 
looking  into,  and  must  be  settled  before  we  commit 
ourselves  irrevocably  to  Herbartianism.  We  must  run 
no  risks  in  choosing  our  Psychology. 

Since  the  soul  of  the  pupil  has  originally,  according 
to  Herbart,  "  no  capacity  nor  faculty  whatever,  either 
1  The  Great  Didactic,  Chap.  XI.,  sec.  1. 


84  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

to  receive  or  to  produce  anything,"  since  all  changes  in 
this  soul  result  from  its  reaction  upon  ideas  presented 
to  it,  and  since  the  master  can  choose  the  ideas  to  be 
presented,  and  can  modify  and  arrange  them,  there 
seems  to  be  a  primd  facie  case,  for  those  who  wish  to 
hang  the  teachers  of  bad  men. 

We  may,  indeed,  —  as  most  educators  do,  —  decline 
to  accept  Herbart's  metaphysical  conception  of  the 
soul,  while  firmly  holding  to  his  psychological  posi- 
tions. Yet  even  with  this  limitation,  the  Herbartian 
theory  brings  with  it  an  enormous  responsibility  for 
the  master. 

Rousseau  shirks  this  responsibility  by  allowing  the 
child  to  grow  up  without  any  interference.  The  main 
duty  of  the  teacher  during  the  early  years  of  the 
pupil's  life  is  —  as  our  school-management  books  take  a 
special  pride  in  repeating — to  learn  how  wisely  to  lose 
time.  The  teacher  is  not  to  educate  the  child;  he  is 
merely  to  answer  questions  and  give  such  explanations 
as  are  asked.  A  French  cynic  tells  us  that  a  cat  does 
not  caress  us ;  it  only  caresses  itself  against  us.  In 
Rousseau's  system  of  education,  the  master  exists  to  be 
rubbed  against.  Such  a  master  should  run  no  danger 
of  hanging,  even  in  China.  One  does  not  whip  the 
teething  coral  when  the  baby  breaks  the  milk  bottle. 

The  Froebelian  is  equally  safe.  If  the  teacher  is  but 
a  benevolent  superintendent  of  the  process  of  develop- 
ment which  he  allows  to  follow  its  own  course,  he  can- 
not with  any  show  of  justice  be  hanged.  We  must  on 
Froebelian  principles  go  back  many  generations  before 
we  find  a  fit  subject  for  the  hangman. 


THE  THEORY   OF   INITIAL  EQUALITY  85 

The  Herbartian  cannot  adopt  either  of  those  safe 
plans.  He  must  do  positive  work.  To  do  nothing 
may  be  as  harmful  as  to  do  something  positively  evil. 
To  refrain  from  regulating  the  supply  and  organization 
of  ideas,  results  as  certainly  in  a  bad  soul  as  to  supply 
useless  ideas  badly  arranged.  He  who  is  not  for  the 
child  is  against  him.  Nor  are  there  any  innate  facul- 
ties behind  which  the  teacher  may  shelter  himself  and 
hide  his  bungled  work.  There  must  be  no  complaints 
against  the  quality  of  the  material  supplied.  In  so  far 
as  the  master  is  the  sole  educator  of  the  child,  in  so 
far  is  he  directly  responsible  for  the  kind  of  child 
turned  out.  If  a  teacher  really  wishes  to  magnify  his 
office,  and  is  not  afraid  to  pay  the  price,  he  cannot  do 
better  than  turn  Herbartian. 

It  is  not  enough  to  smile  at  this  man-making  theory. 
Even  a  sneer  is  not  quite  satisfactory.  It  is  to  be 
remembered  —  and  this  argument  ought  to  soothe  the 
votary  of  common  sense  —  that  the  experiment  has 
never  been  made.  "  Psychology  may  not  experiment 
with  men," 1  says  Herbart,  and  though  exception  may 
be  taken  on  certain  grounds  to  the  general  application 
of  the  restriction,  there  will  be  unanimous  consent  that 
certain  direct  experiments  will  not  be  tolerated.  The 
beginnings  of  language,  the  nature  of  sense  perception, 
the  relation  between  perception  and  conception,  would 
all  be  much  better  understood  if  we  were  but  allowed 
to  make  a  few  direct  experiments,  which  might  involve 
some  sacrifice  of  natural  human  development.  But 
the  times  that  Herodotus  so  simply  describes  are  past, 
1  Psy.,  Intro.,  4. 


86  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  such  experiments  are  no  longer  possible.  But 
there  are  other  causes  why  the  experiment  of  man- 
making  has  not  yet  been  tried.  The  experiment  would 
probably  not  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  subject,  but  it 
certainly  could  only  be  performed  at  an  enormous  out- 
lay of  time  and  labour  on  the  part  of  the  experimenter. 
Not  till  we  are  ready  to  act  upon  the  hard  saying  of 
Froebel,  "  Let  us  live  for  our  children,"  can  the  experi- 
ment be  tried.  It  is  literally  a  case  of  a  life  for  a  life. 
The  teacher  would  require  to  devote  absolutely  every 
moment  of  twenty-one  years  to  the  pupil,  in  order  that 
when  the  pupil  came  of  age  he  might  be  exactly  the 
sort  of  man  the  master  wished  to  make  of  him.  Besides 
the  terrible  demand  in  the  matter  of  time,  the  experi- 
ment could  not  be  successful  unless  the  master  had 
the  complete  control  of  the  pupil's  environment.  Obvi- 
ously the  experiment  is  out  of  the  question. 

This  is  the  less  to  be  regretted  that,  even  if  success- 
ful, the  experiment  could  have  none  but  the  most 
ghastly  results.  What  happened  to  Frankenstein 
from  the  physiological  side  would  happen  to  the  Her- 
bartian  from  the  psychological.  The  "man"  thus 
made  would  be  a  monster  —  if  not  of  badness,  then  of 
goodness,  but  none  the  less  a  monster.  We  could  not 
deny  the  creature  a  soul,  since  the  soul  is  given  in  the 
recipe  for  man-making,  but  the  monster  could  have  no 
power  of  spontaneous  action ;  it  would  be  nothing  but 
a  good-going  virtue  machine. 

Even  the  very  limited  claims  put  forward  in  this  di- 
rection at  once  draw  down  upon  the  teacher  the  most 
severe  judgments.  The  critics  want  to  know,  since  the 


THE   THEORY  OF   INITIAL  EQUALITY     .  87 

Herbartians  can  make  men,  why  they  do  not  make  a 
better  job  of  them.  Why  are  not  all  men  honest,  true, 
happy,  and  clever,  if  it  is  only  a  matter  of  supplying 
the  proper  ideas  at  the  proper  times? 

The  very  obvious  reply  is  that  even  granting  that 
man-making  were  possible,  if  we  knew  the  proper  ideas 
and  the  proper  times  to  apply  them,  it  does  not  follow 
that  we  know  either  the  suitable  ideas  or  the  fitting 
times.  A  man  may  surely  claim  to  be  a  Herbartian 
without  setting  up  to  be  omniscient. 

More  moderate  and  sympathetic  critics  may  not  be  in- 
clined to  push  the  Herbartian  principles  to  such  extreme 
issues,  yet  are  inclined  to  ask  whether  the  position  of 
soul-making  does  not  imply  a  fundamental  equality  of 
the  souls  operated  upon.  "Are  all  men  equal  at  birth?" 
such  critics  are  wont  to  ask  in  a  tone  that  suggests  only 
one  possible  answer.  One  would  think  that  nowhere 
outside  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  could  the 
assertion  be  found  that  all  men  are  equal,  and  particu- 
larly no  teacher  could  be  expected  to  support  such  a 
paradox. 

Before  going  into  the  general  question,  it  is  worth 
while  to  note  that  Herbart  has  guarded  himself  against 
this  criticism.  The  soul  with  which  he  starts  has,  no 
doubt,  no  capacity  whatever,  and  therefore  it  may  fairly 
be  maintained  that  all  souls  are  equal,  at  the  start.  This 
admission  does  not  at  all  inconvenience  the  Herbartian. 
For  the  soul  can  only  be  roused  to  activity  by  its  reac- 
tion upon  ideas  presented  to  it.  These  ideas  must,  in 
the  first  instance,  be  presented  through  the  senses ;  the 
senses  depend  upon  the  body,  and  Herbart  did  not 


88  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

maintain  that  the  body  has  no  capacity  nor  faculty 
whatever  —  and  the  rest.  There  is  thus  plenty  of 
room  for  the  Herbartian  to  turn  about  in,  without 
getting  caught  in  the  paradox. 

But,  after  all,  is  there  anything  so  very  heinous  in 
the  assumption  that  all  men  are  born  intellectually 
equal?  Does  it  amount  to  a  reductio  ad  absurdum, 
when  a  system  can  be  shown  to  involve  the  assertion 
that  all  men  are  born  equal  in  intelligence  ? 

The  apparently  absurd  thesis  of  the  initial  equality 
of  men  is  at  least  not  left  without  its  supporters.  A 
witty  German  called  Schweitzer,  who  had  risen  to  a  po- 
sition of  some  importance  in  France  under  the  Latinized 
version  of  his  name,  Helvetius,  published  in  1758  a  book 
entitled  De  V Esprit.  In  it  he  explicitly  states  and  fully 
works  out  the  thesis  that  all  men  are  born  intellectually 
equal.  With  him  all  intellectual  life,  when  reduced  to 
its  simplest  elements,  can  be  resolved  into  the  interac- 
tion of  sense  impressions.  All  our  higher  functions  of 
thought,  feeling,  desire,  or  will,  are  evolved  out  of,  and 
may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  those  sense  impressions, 
which  are  indeed  the  ultimate  elements,  the  final  surds, 
of  the  Helvetian  Psychology.  Ignorant  of  the  modern 
psj^chometric  methods,  unfamiliar  even  with  the  obvious 
application  to  Psychology  of  the  physiology  of  the  nerve 
centres,  it  is  not  so  very  wonderful  that  Helvetius  fell 
into  the  glaring  non-sequitur  that  since  sense  impres- 
sions are  the  foundation  of  all  knowledge,  and  since 
we  are  all  capable  of  receiving  sense  impressions,  there- 
fore we  are  all  at  birth  intellectually  equal. 

Even  a  philosopher  cannot  afford  altogether  to  disre- 


THE  THEORY   OF  INITIAL   EQUALITY  89 

gard  the  actual  state  of  affairs,  that  state  with  which 
our  experience  makes  us  familiar.  In  real  life  men 
differ  so  notoriously  that  Helvetius  found  it  necessary 
to  discover  some  explanation  of  the  change  from  initial 
equality,  to  ultimate  difference.  For  us  his  answer  is 
momentous.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  education  and  environ- 
ment.1 Men  are  born  intellectually  equal,  no  doubt. 
But  they  soon  begin  to  differ  because  of  their  varying 
desire  for  instruction.  To  stop  with  this  explanation 
is  obviously  impossible.  Whence  comes  this  difference 
in  desire,  if  all  the  souls  are  the  same  ?  Helvetius 
is  clearly  reasoning  in  a  circle,  but  he  has  the  grace 
to  see  that  his  circle  has  an  indecently  small  radius. 
Accordingly  he  proceeds  to  add  an  elongator  to 
his  compasses.  This  desire  for  instruction  originates 
he  tells  us,  in  the  impelling  force  of  passions,  of  which 
all  men  commonly  well-organized  are  susceptible  in  the 
same  degree.  Maintaining  a  kindly  blindness  to  the 
almost  impudent  begging  of  the  question  implied  in 
the  italicized  words,  we  are  still  unable  to  see  that  any 
advance  has  been  made.  We  are  precisely  where  we 
started  from.  We  want  next  to  know  how  it  comes 

1  "...  la  difference  d'esprit  qu'on  remarque  entr'eux  depend  des 
diverges  circonstances  dans  lesquelles  ils  se  trouvent  place's,  et  l'e"duca- 
tion  diffe'rente  qu'ils  regoivent.  Cette  conclusion  fait  sentir  toute 
1'importance  de  1' education."  —  Discours  III. 

His  explanation  of  the  scarcity  of  geniuses  is  clever,  if  not  very  conclusive  :  "  Les 
talents  compagnards  sont  toujours  condamn^s  a  la  mediocrite."  This  at  once  rids  him 
of  all  the  population  of  France  except  the  800,000  who  then  made  up  the  population  of 
Paris.  His  next  limitation  explains  why  this  note  is  printed  in  such  small  type.  Of  the 
800,000  "  Ton  en  suppriine  la  moiti6,  c'est  a  dire,  les  femmes,  dont  1'education  et  la  vie 
s'opposent,  au  progres  qu'elles  pourraient  faire  dans  les  sciences  et  les  arts."  When 
Helvetius  has  further  subtracted  old  men,  children,  workmen,  soldiers,  monks,  and 
others  who  have  no  time,  or  who  have  other  desires  than  esprit,  he  concludes  that  the 
remainder  will  not  be  too  large  for  the  number  of  geniuses  then  existing  in  France, 


90  THE    HEHBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

about  that  those  passions  to  which  we  are  all  equally 
susceptible  arouse  in  some  of  us  a  desire  for  instruction, 
and  in  others  do  not. 

The  fact  is  that  the  book  De  V Esprit  should  never 
have  been  taken  seriously.  It  was  far  from  being  a 
failure.  Written  to  cause  a  sensation,  from  this  point 
of  view  it  was  a  brilliant  success.  For  a  few  months 
it  set  all  Europe  by  the  ears,  and  roused  a  storm  of  in- 
dignation that  wrung  three  separate  recantations  from 
the  frightened  author.  Its  short  but  merry  life  came 
to  an  untimely  end  at  the  hands  of  the  common  hang- 
man. 

What  Helvetius  maintained  for  the  sake  of  effect, 
Jacotot,  a  teacher  and  a  good  one,  adopted  in  dead 
earnest  as  a  rational  explanation  of  phenomena  he  had 
observed.  Even  the  sober-minded  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold, 
of  Rugby,  makes  the  remark  that  he  finds  boys  differ 
not  so  much  in  intellectual  power  as  in  energy.  The 
same  observation  in  the  experience  of  the  enthusiastic 
Frenchman  at  once  led  him  to  make  the  absolute  state- 
ment: "Tous  les  hommes  ont  une  intelligence  e*gale."  l 
Like  Helvetius,  Jacotot  held  that  the  great  differences 
we  observe  among  men  in  mature  life  are  the  direct 
result  of  education;  but  with  him  education  really 
meant  self-education.  We  can  all  become  Racines  and 
Molidres  if  we  only  have  the  desire.2  It  is  all  a  matter 
of  will.  The  schoolmaster  lias  very  little  to  do  with  it. 

1  Preface  to  first  edition  of  Enseignement  Universel.     The  refer- 
ences to  the  Enseignement  Universel  are  indicated  by  the  pages  of  the 
seventh  edition,  dated  Paris,  1852. 

2  Page  104. 


THE  THEORY   OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY  91 

The  "  seven  years'  system,"  as  he  is  never  tired  of  nam- 
ing the  course  of  school  instruction  common  in  his  time 
(he  died  in  1840),  does  harm  instead  of  good  to  the  in- 
tellect subjected  to  it.  In  his  letter  to  Lafayette  he 
asserts:  "Every  one  who  is  taught  [by  another]  is 
only  half  a  man." 

On  the  other  hand,  he  is  bitterly  opposed  to  the  doc- 
trine that  recognizes  inherent  powers  that  show  them- 
selves independently  of  all  education.  "Away  with 
Genius"  is  his  continual  cry.  "  Be  it  understood  that 
the  pupil  is  always  to  point  out  the  fact  that  has  in- 
spired this  reflection  ;  otherwise  he  has  wandered  from 
the  Universal  Method  of  instruction.  He  works  by 
Genius,  that  is  to  say,  by  groping  and  blindly :  he  is 
sure  of  nothing."1 

While  the  ordinary  forms  of  education  are  tedious 
and  hurtful,  the  pupils  must  not  presume  to  do  with- 
out education  altogether.  They  will  get  along  all 
right  without  our  help.2  But  while  "a  master  is  never 
necessary  to  man,"  he  is  "  infinitely  useful " 3  to  him. 
Jacotot  takes  up  pretty  much  the  same  stand-by  atti- 
tude as  the  Froebelians,  but  he  has  not  their  justifica- 
tion. He  has  no  good  reason  why  pupils  should  not 
educate  themselves,  yet  he  cannot  let  them  alone.  His 
attitude  towards  them  amounts  to  this  :  "  I  cannot 
teach  you,  nor  can  any  other  one.  You  must,  in  the 
last  resort,  teach  yourselves,  but  see  that  you  do  it 
according  to  the  method  I  have  laid  down."  This 

1  Page  131. 

2  "  Je  dis  que  l'e"leve  ira  bien  sans  vous."  — p.  120. 

3  Page  304. 


92  THE  HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

reminds  one  of  Sganarelle's  injunction  to  his  patient 
to  take  care  not  to  die  without  the  doctor's  orders. 

Leaving  theory  for  a  little,  what  does  our  actual 
experience  tell  us  of  the  equality  of  intelligence  in  the 
ordinary  school?  Dr.  Stewart,  one  of  Her  Majesty's 
Chief  Inspectors  of  Schools  for  Scotland,  who  is  deeply 
interested  in  this  matter  and  has  had  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities of  judging,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  five  per 
cent  of  clever  boys  and  five  per  cent  of  dunces  is  an 
ample  allowance.  The  remaining  ninety  per  cent  are 
average.  If  this  be  true  of  children  after  several  years 
of  education  at  school,  to  say  nothing  of  the  first  five 
years  of  home  life  (by  far  the  most  important  in  the 
formation  of  the  child's  mind  and  heart),  there  seems 
no  primd  facie  objection  to  the  theory  of  equality  at 
birth. 

Further,  the  estimated  percentage  of  blockheads  and 
clever  pupils  is  determined  according  to  a  very  narrow 
standard.  The  test  is  a  purely  literary  one.  If  swim- 
ming were  a  test  as  in  ancient  Athens,  or  archery  as 
in  the  knightly  training,  there  might  still  be  the  five 
per  cent  of  dunces  and  geniuses,  but  they  would  cer- 
tainly not  be  the  same  five  per  cent  that  our  present 
test  gives.  It  has  become  a  commonplace  that  the  dux 
at  school  is  by  no  means  the  most  likely  to  do  well  in 
after  life.1  School  calls  out  altogether  different  quali- 
ties from  those  demanded  in  what  is  known  as  real 
life.  Every  teacher  can  call  up  scores  of  cases  in 
which  the  dull  John  has  completely  outshone  the  clever 
one.  Simply  to  give  point  to  an  argument  that  no 
1  Cf-  Jacotot's  sarcasm,  p.  200, 


THE  THEORY   OF   INITIAL  EQUALITY  93 

teacher  will  oppose,  think  of  young  Walter  Scott,  the 
dunce  of  his  class,  the  boy  who  could  never  thoroughly 
master  the  Greek  alphabet.  So  widespread  was  the 
tale  of  his  early  stupidity  that  poor  Sir  Walter  in  later 
years  was  forced  with  humorous  pathos  to  maintain  in 
his  diary  that  he  was  not  such  a  blockhead  after  all. 
No  teacher,  at  least,  will  be  unwilling  to  admit  his  plea. 
We  know  too  well,  that  everything  depends  upon  what 
the  inspector  takes  John  on.  Had  young  Walter  been 
tested  on  Scottish  history  instead  of  Greek  characters, 
Biography  would  have  had  a  different  tale  to  tell. 

Reverting  to  our  five  per  cent  of  clever  and  dull 
children,  we  have  to  remark  that  the  proposition  is 
generally  taken  for  granted  "  once  a  blockhead  always 
a  blockhead."  In  other  words,  the  time  element  is 
usually  left  out  in  considerations  of  this  kind.  But 
cases  are  frequent  in  which  a  really  dull  boy  suddenly 
brightens  up,  and  others  in  which  the  genius  seems  to 
have  burnt  itself  out  in  a  boy.  Physiology  has  a  good 
deal  to  say  on  this  subject.  It  may  not  be  absolutely 
true  that  mental  development  advances  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  rate  of  growth  of  the  body,  but  there  is  enough 
truth  in  it  to  modify  the  "  always  a  blockhead  "  theory. 
How  often  do  we  see  a  sudden  arrest  of  mental  devel- 
opment accompanying  a  sudden  spurt  of  bodily  growth. 
Other  things  being  equal,  I  would  be  prepared  to  back 
the  undersized  boy  of  a  given  age  against  his  average- 
sized  rival,  and  of  course  still  more  against  the  boy 
over  the  average. 

Passing  from  this  point  (which  must  be  recognized 
as  only  one  of  innumerable  physiological  considerations), 


94  THE   HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

we  come  to  a  purely  mental  phenomenon,  which  may 
be  called,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  mental  conversion. 
In  learning,  as  in  religion,  there  are  gradual  conver- 
sions and  sudden.  A  pupil  may  learn  steadily,  show- 
ing clear  progress  from  day  to  day.  But  sometimes 
this  happens  :  A  boy  may  appear  to  be  a  perfect  dunce 
at  some  particular  subject.  He  seems  to  learn  hard, 
but  all  to  no  purpose.  He  puffs  and  groans  over  his 
work,  but  makes  no  progress.  The  teacher  sets  him 
down  as  a  hopeless  case.  Suddenly  some  morning 
John  wakens  up  to  a  belief  that  he  knows  his  subject 
at  last ;  and  he  does.  He  may  be  unable  to  parse,  for 
example,  and  yet  know  the  whole  of  his  grammar  by 
rote  in  a  dull,  unintelligent  way.  One  fine  morning 
the  thing  dawns  upon  him.  He  sees  how  the  affair 
works.  He  can  parse. 

Nursery  psychologists  tell  us  that  something  of  the 
same  kind  may  be  observed  among  children  in  their 
youngest  years.  It  usually  happens  that  a  child  learns 
to  speak  gradually  and  by  well-defined  stages.  But 
occasional  cases  occur  in  which  the  child  remains 
practically  mute  for  an  inordinately  long  time,  and 
then  suddenly  bursts  out  into  loquacity. 

This  mental  conversion  fits  in  very  comfortably  to 
the  Herbartian  Psychology.  The  necessary  ideas  in 
any  subject  are  supposed  to  be  duly  introduced  into 
the  mind,  but  they  have  not  been  united  in  the  proper 
way  to  produce  the  kind  of  knowledge  we  desire.  The 
material  is  all  gathered  there,  and  only  requires  to  be 
brought  into  the  proper  relation  to  produce  the  effect 
the  master  desires.  Most  people  who  have  travelled 


THE   THEORY    OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY  95 

by  rail  any  distance  on  a  rainy  day  have  had  a  tangible 
demonstration  of  the  mechanism  of  mental  conversion. 
We  have  all  beguiled  the  tedium  of  the  journey  by  ob- 
serving the  behaviour  of  the  drops  of  rain  that  gather 
on  the  window-panes  of  the  carriage.  Two  or  three 
biggish  drops  start  from  the  top,  and  make  a  more  or 
less  devious  way  for  themselves  down  the  pane.  But 
most  of  them  do  not  reach  the  bottom  alone.  Sooner 
or  later  they  coalesce  with  some  other  drop  or  drops, 
and  thus  precipitate  their  descent.  Not  otherwise  do 
the  isolated  ideas  act.  Half  a  dozen  little  apperception 
masses  may  try  to  make  headway,  but  ignominiously 
fail.  Suddenly  some  unexpected  jolt  of  the  mental 
machinery  may  do  what  an  unusual  jolt  of  the  carriage 
does  for  the  drops,  and  a  new  and  powerful  group  is 
formed  which  straightway  modifies  the  teacher's  views 
on  the  nature  of  the  intellect  in  which  this  phenomenon 
has  occurred. 

The  teacher  cannot  afford  to  be  so  dogmatic  as  he 
usually  is  on  the  question  of  the  inherent  natural 
ability  of  his  pupils.  Even  the  least  dogmatic  teacher, 
however,  may  be  excused  for  shrugging  his  shoulders 
when  Jacotot  improves  upon  his  original  paradox  and 
maintains1  that  not  only  are  all  men  equal  in  intelli- 
gence at  the  beginning  of  life,  but  they  remain  equal 
all  along.  Development  of  thought,  in  the  usual  sense, 
thus  becomes  impossible.  "  I  believe  that  Csesar  as  a 
child  thought  like  Caesar  on  the  banks  of  the  Rubicon. 
I  do  not  believe  that  thought  grows  little  by  little. 
Little  Csesar  thought  of  sweetmeats,  and  the  adult 
1  Page  208. 


96  THE   HERBARTFAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Csesar  of  crowns,  but  thought  did  not  vary  with  its 
object.  There  are  many  things  to  be  learnt  —  which 
nothing  can  make  us  guess  —  before  knowing  what 
a  crown  is.  May  it  not  be  that  the  cause  of  the 
common  error  arises  from  our  confounding  thought, 
which  is  natural  to  us,  with  its  expression,  which  is  an 
acquisition,  and  a  habit  which  nothing  but  exercise 
can  give  ?  " 

This  view  is  put  still  more  strongly  when  Jacotot 
compares  not  Caesar  the  child  with  Csesar  the  consul, 
but  any  child  with  any  man.  "  We  have  not  all  the 
same  tastes,  the  same  dispositions,  that  is  to  say,  the 
same  will,  but  the  smallest  child  has  the  same  intellect 
as  the  adult  Archimedes." 1  In  other  words,  the  differ- 
ence between  Newton  and  an  ordinary  undergraduate 
who  is  ploughed  in  his  mathematics  is  a  moral  differ- 
ence—  a  difference  in  will.2 

While  the  will  is  regarded  as  sufficient  to  account 
for  all  the  differences  we  observe  among  men,  Jacotot 
does  not  forget  that  correlative  condition  of  all  devel- 
opment,—  the  condition  that  answers  to  the  big  and 
popular  word  environment.  Listen  to  another  of  his 
paradoxes :  "  It  is  precisely  because  we  are  all  equal 
by  nature,  that  we  become  all  unequal  by  circum- 
stances."3 

Tastes,  dispositions,  and  will  being  eliminated,  it  is 

1  Page  198. 

2  Cf.  Helvetius  :  "C'est  done,  uniquement  dans  le  moral  qu'on  doit 
chercher  la  veritable  cause  de  rine"galite"  des  esprits."  —  De  VEsprit, 
Discours  III. 

3  Page  109. 


THE   THEORY   OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY  97 

clear  that  what  is  left  may  be  called,  in  a  popular  sense 
at  least,  pure  intellect.  That  this  intellect,  considered 
apart  from  all  the  other  elements  of  the  soul,  is  equal 
among  all  men  can  hardly  be  denied,  is  hardly  worth 
denying.  When  the  process  of  elimination  has  been 
completed,  we  find  that  the  intellect  we  have  left  does 
not  amount  to  very  much  ;  to  no  more,  indeed,  than 
the  simple  undifferentiated  being  which  represents  the 
soul  of  the  Herbartian  Psychology. 

This  intellect,  too,  must  be  considered  apart  from  all 
ideas  or  matter  of  any  kind ;  for  as  soon  as  ideas  ap- 
pear, they  necessarily  bring  in  their  train  at  least  feel- 
ings, which  at  once  introduce  an  element  of  difference. 
Jacotot  has,  in  a  word,  emptied  the  soul  of  content,  and 
has  reduced  it  to  a  mere  mechanism.  That  this  intel- 
lect, if  such  an  intellect  can  be  said  to  exist  isolated 
from  all  else,  is  equal  "chez  tous  les  hommes,"  one  need 
not  trouble  oneself  to  deny.  Such  an  intellect,  though 
of  great  interest  in  educational  theory,  as  we  are  about 
to  see,  is  of  no  consequence  in  a  discussion  regarding 
the  equality  of  souls.  If  men  are  born  with  different 
wills,  they  are  not  born  equal  in  any  important  sense 
of  the  term,  whatever  may  be  said  about  a  certain  ab- 
straction called  the  intelligence. 

It  is  this  abstract  and  comparatively  unimportant 
meaning  of  intellect  that  underlies  all  the  theories  that 
seem  to  imply  the  mental  equality  of  men.  Jacotot 
claims  that  his  views  have  the  support  of  men  like  Soc- 
rates, Newton,  Locke,  Descartes,  Rabelais,  Rousseau, 
and  Buffon.  He  goes  further,  indeed,  and  maintains 
that  "  Everybody  applauds  my  theory  in  his  inmost 


98  THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

heart,  so  long  as  he  thinks  of  himself.  It  is  the  appli- 
cation of  my  system  to  other  folks  that  annoys  and 
worries  people."  Then  he  slyly  adds:  "I  have  never 
seen  one  man  who  opposed  himself  in  person  to  the 
theory,  or  cited  himself  as  an  example  of  an  idiot ;  it 
is  always  a  certain  friend,  a  certain  person  of  their 
acquaintance,  whom  they  present  to  me  as  a  proof  of 
the  falsehood  of  my  principles."  1 

To  the  extent  stated  above  this  claim  of  intellectual 
equality  may  be  admitted.  When  thinking  has  been 
reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  there  is  a  point  at  which  it 
may  be  said  to  be  equal  among  all  men. 

In  plying  his  maieutic  art,  Socrates  tacitly  assumed 
the  intellectual  equality  of  all  those  whose  thoughts 
he  brought  to  the  birth.  The  slave  boy  in  the  Meno 
reasoned  out  his  problem  as  well  as  Euclid  himself 
could  have  done,  had  Euclid  been  limited  to  the  same 
scant  knowledge  as  the  slave  boy  possessed.  Socrates 
asked  his  questions  in  the  firm  and  justifiable  belief 
that  they  would  be  answered  in  but  one  way.2  To  a 
mathematical  question,  the  terms  of  which  are  under- 
stood, there  is  but  one  answer  possible.  Thus  we  do 
not  pause  to  get  the  assent  of  our  pupils  to  the  axioms 
that  guard  the  entrance  to  Euclid.  If  John  does  not 
see  his  way  to  admit  that  things  which  are  equal  to  the 

1  Enseignement  Universel,  p.  73  (Dijon,  1823). 

2  "  Thus  Pythagoras  used  to  say  that  it  was  so  natural  for  a  man  to 
be  possessed  of  all  knowledge  that  a  boy  of  seven  years  old,  if  pru- 
dently questioned  on  all  the  problems  of  philosophy,  ought  to  be  able 
to  give  a  correct  answer  to  each  interrogation,  since  the  light  of  reason 
is  a  sufficient  standard  and  measure  of  all  things."  —  COMENIUS,  Great 
Didactic,  V.  6. 


THE  THEORY  OP    INITIAL   EQUALITY  99 

same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another,  we  do  not  try  to 
persuade  him.  We  send  him  home  with  a  note  which, 
as  gently  as  possible,  breaks  the  news  to  his  father. 

When  Locke  declared  that  he  could  not  understand 
how  honest,  earnest  men  who  understood  the  terms 
could  disagree  about  any  proposition,  he  assumed  that, 
given  a  clearly  expressed  statement,  no  two  honest  men 
could  disagree  about  it,  since  its  effect  upon  the  intelli- 
gence in  both  cases  is  the  same.1  When  Luther  laid 
upon  us  all  the  burden  implied  in  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  he  really  proclaimed  the  intellectual  equal- 
ity of  man,  in  the  sense  to  which  we  have  narrowed  it 
down. 

Luther  leads  us  upon  the  thin  ice  of  theological  con- 
troversy, so  we  hasten  to  skim  over  to  safer  quarters. 
We  cannot  workj  out  Luther's  principle  without  intro- 
ducing disturbing  elements  with  which  we  have  no 
concern.  Against  the  argument  founded  upon  the 
system  of  trial  by  jury,  no  such  objection  can  be  raised. 
Every  jury  that  is  empanelled  is  a  confession  of  our 
belief  in  the  equality,  in  some  sort,  of  all  men.  On 
what  grounds  do  we  regard  the  ignorant  greengrocer 
and  the  learned  biologist  as  intellectual  equals  the 
moment  they  find  themselves,  with  other  ten  men, — 
or  thirteen,  as  the  case  may  be,  —  in  the  jury-box  ? 

Even  Jacotot  would  not  maintain  that  in  common 

1  "Being  fully  persuaded  that  there  are  very  few  things  of  pure 
speculation  wherein  two  thinking  men  who  impartially  seek  truth  can 
differ,  if  they  give  themselves  the  leisure  to  examine  their  hypotheses 
and  understand  one  another."  —  Letter  to  W.  M.,  26  Dec.,  1C92. 
Quoted  by  Quick. 


100  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

life,  and  in  common  terms,  those  two  men  were  equal. 
What  difference,  then,  can  the  jury-box  make  ?  It 
makes  the  important  difference  of  reducing  reasoning 
to  a  series  of  judgments.  The  juryman  is  not  called 
upon  to  think,  he  is  only  required  to  judge.  Thinking 
means,  or  ought  to  mean,  more  than  a  series  of  judg- 
ments. All  that  it  means  we  dare  not  stop  to  inquire, 
but  this  at  least  it  means,  that  the  mind  must  arrange 
the  matter  presented  to  it,  select  the  important,  and 
reject  the  irrelevant.  The  mind  must  prepare  its  own 
syllogisms,  instead  of  merely  tagging  on  conclusions  to 
other  men's  premises.  The  most  popular  speaker  is  he 
who  keeps  on  supplying  premises  to  which  the  audience 
keep  on  adding  conclusions  in  the  belief  that  they  are 
thinking.  This  mechanical  formulation  of  implied  con- 
clusions is  capitally  illustrated  by  that  exasperating  per- 
son against  whom  Thackeray  inveighs,  —  the  man  who 
explains  your  joke.  You  have  made  your  dainty  point, 
you  have  deftly  suggested  your  delicate  idea,  your  cult- 
ured friends  have  given  the  appropriately  restrained 
smile  that  indicates  success.  Five  minutes  afterwards 
your  lumbering  joke-expounder  comes  out  with  a  bald 
statement  of  your  joke  which  he  regards  as  something 
entirely  his  own.  He  is  simply  supplying  the  inevitable 
conclusion  to  the  premises  on  which  even  a  joke  must 
be  built. 

There  are  few  people  who  can  truly  think.1  Take  an 
ordinary  intelligent  ploughman,  who  reads  his  Bible 
and  his  People's  Journal,  and  set  him  down  to  think  on 

1  Cf.  the  sympathetic  motto  of  Steinthal's  Einleitung :  "  Denken  1st 
schwer." 


THE  THEORY   OF   INITIAL   EQUALITY  101 

a  given  subject  out  of  his  usual  run  of  ideas,  say  on  Con- 
scription ;  and  one  of  two  things  happens.  His  mind 
either  wanders  from  the  subject  in  hopeless  reverie,  or 
he  falls  asleep.  He  cannot  think  on  Conscription. 

Placed  in  the  jury-box,  how  does  our  ploughman 
fare  ?  Here  he  is  not  asked  to  think  about  the  case  in 
hand.  The  judge  and  the  lawyers  do  all  the  thinking 
for  him.  The  facts  for  the  prosecution  and  the  defence 
are  clearly  stated  by  the  opposing  lawyers,  and  are 
supplemented  by  the  evidence  of  the  witnesses.  The 
judge  is  careful  to  explain  any  strange  or  technical 
term  that  may  occur,  and  the  juryman  is  permitted  to 
ask  any  reasonable  question.  At  the  close,  the  judge 
sums  up  the  whole  case,  and  reduces  it  to  a  simple  issue 
of  which  all  the  terms  are  understood  by  the  jury. 
Trial  by  jury  is  based  on  the  principle  that  under  such 
circumstances  the  jury  can  give  but  one  decision.  As- 
suming, as  the  law  does,  that  the  twelve  (or  fifteen)  men 
are  honest  and  true,  it  has  a  right  to  expect  that  their 
decision  will  be  just.  The  fact  that  honest  jurymen 
sometimes  err  is  to  be  explained,  not  by  denying  their 
ability  to  decide  on  an  issue  clearly  placed  before  them, 
but  by  laying  bare  some  disturbing  element  in  the  way 
of  interest  or  emotion.  A  judgment  entirely  free  from 
the  influence  of  feeling  is  almost  an  impossibility,  but 
so  far  as  such  disturbing  elements  can  be  eliminated, 
all  men  under  identical  circumstances  will  decide  alike. 

If  the  judge  can  be  perfectly  sure  that  he  is  able  to 
reduce  each  of  his  points  to  an  issue  that  presents 
precisely  the  same  elements  to  each  juryman,  he  may 
with  perfect  confidence  close  each  of  his  paragraphs 


102  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

with  a  decision,  adding  the  words  the  minister  uses  at 
baptisms  :  "  That  is  your  belief,  is  it  not  ?  "  And  every 
juryman's  head  would  bow  with  the  characteristic  sud- 
denness that  marks  a  first  father. 

Unfortunately,  this  absolute  uniformity  of  conceiving 
an  issue  is  practically  unattainable.  Even  a  juryman 
brings  to  his  work  a  certain  amount  of  organized  know- 
ledge, and  must  interpret  all  the  presented  facts  in  the 
light  of  this  knowledge.  If  most  people  cannot  think 
well,  few  people  can  avoid  thinking  at  all.  If  the 
jury  could  either  think  well,  or  abstain  from  thinking 
altogether,  and  restrict  themselves  to  judging,  trial  by 
jury  would  not  be  so  unpopular  with  honest  lawyers 
as  it  undoubtedly  is. 

This  distinction  between  thinking  and  judging  is  of 
the  utmost  importance  in  teaching.  Most  teachers 
regard  the  simplification  of  a  subject  as  one  of  their 
main  functions,  and  will  be  surprised  to  hear  it  main- 
tained that  it  is  possible  to  make  a  subject  too  clear. 
Yet  if  a  subject  is  presented  to  a  pupil  in  the  form  of 
a  series  of  judgments  to  which  his  assent  is  demanded, 
there  may  be  clearness,  there  may  be  intelligent  appre- 
hension of  each  i'act  presented,  there  may  be  great 
interest  in  the  lesson,  and  yet  there  may  be  little  real 
thinking  done.  Mere  assent  to  a  series  of  propositions 
is  not  thinking.  If  the  teacher  has  the  skill  to  reduce 
all  his  facts  to  a  well-ordered  chain  of  logical  issues, 
he  may  rely  absolutely  upon  getting  a  true  bill  from 
his  young  jury  every  time.  But  a  teacher  is  not  a 
mere  judge,  his  class  not  a  mere  jury.  An  ingenious 
mechanician  has  invented  a  logic  machine  into  which 


THE  THEORY   OP   INITIAL  EQUALITY  103 

you  feed  premises,  and  from  which,  by  turning  a  handle, 
you  duly  grind  out  the  corresponding  conclusions. 
How  long  must  the  patient  experimenter  turn  the 
handle  before  he  can  educate  the  machine  to  think  ? 

The  modern  teacher,  like  the  modern  shepherd,  must 
advance  with  the  times.  In  the  Sunday-school,  and  in 
the  East  generally,  the  shepherd  goes  before  his  flock, 
who  patiently  and  intelligently  follow  him.  The  shep- 
herd with  whom  common  life  makes  us  acquainted 
goes  behind,  and  by  the  help  of  a  stick  and  a  dog 
makes  the  sheep  find  the  way  he  wishes  them  to  follow. 
The  older-fashioned  teacher,  like  the  older-fashioned 
shepherd,  goes  before,  and  shows  the  way.  The  pupils 
certainly  follow,  but  what  they  gain  by  following  is 
not  so  clear.  Even  in  morals  it  is  not  enough  that 
pupils  should  follow  the  teacher's  example.  Most 
teachers  who  possess  a  copy  of  Chaucer  have  the  page 
turned  down  at  the  description  of  the  "pore  persoun 
of  a  toun"  of  whom  it  is  said  in  words  for  whose 
threadbare  appearance  I  feel  inclined  to  apologize :  — 

"  But  Cristes  lore,  aud  his  apostles  twelve, 
He  taught,  and  ferst  he  folwed  it  hiinselve." 

To  follow  the  good  parson  is  well,  but  to  follow  the 
lore  is  better.  With  regard  to  the  vexed  question  of 
example  and  precept,  the  higher  criticism  from  the 
teacher's  standpoint  is  summed  up  in  the  apparently 
indifferent  but  really  modest  statement  "  Don't  do  as 
I  do ;  do  as  I  tell  you."  It  is  good  to  act  like  Gold- 
smith's parson,  who 

"  Allur'd  to  brighter  worlds,  and  led  the  way  ;  " 


104  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

but  it  is  better  to  see  that  the  flock  go  in  the  way. 
We  surely  do  not  want  to  get  to  heaven  merely  to 
keep  the  parson  company.  We  must  put  higher  ideals 
before  our  youngsters,  and,  above  all,  we  must  see  that 
they  apply  them.  The  newer  style  of  teacher  keeps 
behind,  and  acts  as  a  vis  a  tergo  to  impel  the  pupils  to 
push  on  for  themselves.  As  soon  as  they  wander  from 
the  path,  the  teacher  is  ready  with  his  crook  to  pull  them 
up  sharply,  and  make  them  start  fair  again.  By  this 
method  he  hopes  that  the  pupils  will  acquire  the  power 
of  acting  for  themselves,  making  many  mistakes  no 
doubt,  but  learning  more  from  their  mistakes  than  from 
the  most  faultless  imitation.1 

A  very  general  criticism  of  the  schoolmaster's  point 
of  view  is  that  it  sets  up  the  power  of  reproducing 
knowledge  as  the  true  test  of  learning.  What  the 
pupil  can  reproduce,  that  the  schoolmaster  admits  he 
has  learnt.  While  this  power  of  mere  reproduction  is 
not  in  itself  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  real  knowledge 
has  been  acquired,  it  cannot  on  the  other  hand  be  main- 
tained that  what  the  pupil  cannot,  in  some  way  or 
other,  reproduce  is  really  acquired.  The  value  of  for- 
gotten knowledge  is  not  the  point  at  present  at  issue. 
The  question  is,  can  a  pupil  be  said  really  to  know 
what  he  cannot  reproduce  so  as  to  apply  it  to  a  new 
case  ?  A  pupil  may  by  skilful  questioning  be  made  to 
assent,  with  full  comprehension,  to  all  the  detailed  state- 
ments in  a  complicated  problem  in  perspective.  He 
understands  not  only  each  step  in  the  process,  but  he 

1  This  does  not  raise  the  question  of  teaching  from  bad  examples, 
which  opens  up  a  subject  with  which  we  have  at  present  no  concern. 


THE  THEORY  OP  INITIAL  EQUALITY  105 

understands  the  bearing  of  each  part  on  the  whole. 
Yet  he  may  be  quite  unable  to  attack  a  new  problem 
of  the  same  kind,  or  even  to  work  anew  from  the  begin- 
ning the  problem  already  studied. 

In  such  a  case  the  failure  to  reproduce  a  given  prob- 
lem is  a  clear  proof  that  the  problem  has  not  been 
really  mastered.  The  teacher  here  has  shown  the  way, 
but  with  very  poor  results.  The  test  of  teaching  is 
not  how  the  master  teaches,  but  how  the  pupil  learns. 

The  true  method  is  to  break  up  each  complicated 
problem  into  a  series  not  of  propositions  but  of  little 
problems,  not  judgments  to  be  made  but  ends  to  be 
attained.  In  each  case  the  important  point  for  the 
teacher  to  attend  to  is  the  relation  to  be  established 
between  the  ideas  already  in  the  mind  and  the  idea 
now  to  be  presented  to  it.  Not  ideas  in  general,  but 
ideas  arranged  in  the  most  suitable  way  is  the  teacher's 
aim.  This  principle  is  already  widely  acted  upon  in 
our  newer  methods.  Formerly  the  multiplication  table 
was  the  only  table  learnt  in  school.  Now  we  have  the 
addition  table,  the  subtraction  table,  the  division  table. 
It  is  felt  to  be  not  enough  that  the  numbers  should 
be  within  the  mind,  they  must  be  grouped  there  in  the 
best  possible  form.  Seven  and  nine,  for  example,  are 
to  be  so  intimately  connected  with  16  that  they  cannot 
appear  together  above  the  threshold  without  at  once 
increasing  the  presentative  activity  of  the  idea  of  16  to 
such  an  extent  as  at  once  to  raise  it  to  the  summit  of 
the  dome.  A  well-constructed  addition  table  is  an  ad- 
mirable diagrammatic  representation  of  a  satisfactory 
apperception  mass. 


106  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  we  do 
not  know  whether  all  souls  are  equal  at  birth,  and  that 
after  all  it  does  not  matter;  for  by  the  time  the  pupil 
makes  his  appearance  in  school,  his  soul  is  different 
from  the  other  souls  in  his  class.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  a  sort  of  common  lowest  level  of  thinking.  So 
far  as  we  can  reduce  thinking  to  what  is  described  in 
the  old-fashioned  Formal  Logic  Books,  our  minds  may 
be  regarded  as  equal.1  Whatever  goes  on  in  the  mind 
seems  to  be  the  same  in  all  cases,  though  the  rate  of 
speed  is  very  different.  We  must  all  pass  over  the 
pons  asinorum,  though  our  pace  may  be  very  different. 
The  boy  who  has  gone  over  the  first  book  of  Euclid  in 
six  weeks  has  learned  quicker,  but  not  necessarily  bet- 
ter than  or  even  differently  from  the  boy  who  takes 
six  months  to  it.  Yet  there  is  obviously  a  difference 
in  the  two  cases.  What  this  difference  is  it  will  be  the 
business  of  the  next  chapter  to  discuss. 

1  That  this,  after  all,  is  what  Jacotot  means  may  be  inferred  from 
his  otherwise  untenable  statement :  "Tout  le  monde  sail  la  logique." 


CHAPTER   V 

FORMAL   EDUCATION 

THERE  is  a  prevailing  impression  among  teachers, 
and  particularly  among  those  who  are  connected  with 
what  is  sometimes  called  a  liberal  education,  that  it 
really  does  not  matter  very  much  what  one  learns. 
The  culture  comes  all  the  same.  It  is  not  the  what; 
it  is  the  how.  The  base  utilitarian  may  study  Euclid 
in  order  that  by  and  by  he  may  be  able  to  estimate 
the  cubical  content  of  dung  heaps ; 1  the  embryo  man 
of  culture  studies  Geometry  in  order  to  train  his  mind. 
The  Classics  have,  no  doubt,  some  commercial  and 
social  value  ;  but  they  are  said  to  owe  their  command- 
ing place  in  our  educational  system  to  their  power  as 
a  mental  discipline.  The  graduate  may  forget  his 
Latin  and  his  Greek,  it  is  said,  but  he  can  never  lose 
the  culture  they  have  left  in  his  mind. 

In  the  present  war  of  competing  subjects,  the  main 
point  of  discussion  is :  Which  gives  the  best  result  in 
culture, — which  is  best  fitted  to  cultivate  the  mind? 
Classics,  Science,  Mathematics  —  each  claims  pre-emi- 
nence. It  is  left  for  the  Herbartian  to  sweep  aside 
all  claims  alike,  and  raise  the  preliminary  question  : 
Do  any  of  them  train  the  mind  at  all ;  can  the  mind 
be  trained? 

1  Inspectors  of  schools  in  Scotland  tell  me  that  this  is  a  very  popu- 
lar application  of  Mathematics  in  rural  Continuation  Classes. 

107 


108  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

The  question  resolves  itself  into  the  problem  of  the 
possibility  of  what  is  called  formal  education  ;  that  is, 
the  possibility  of  training  a  mind  irrespective  of  the 
materials  upon  which  it  is  exercised.  This  meaning 
must  be  clearly  marked  off  from  that  attached  to  formal 
education  by  Professor  Donaldson  in  his  The  Growth  of 
the  Brain.  There  it  is  used  to  signify  systematic  or 
scholastic  education  as  opposed  to  the  never-ceasing 
education  of  experience,  and  as  such  is  rather  lightly 
spoken  of  as  a  force  modifying  brain  development :  — 

"  It  appears  probable  that  the  education  of  the  schools 
is  but  one,  and  that,  too,  rather  an  insignificant  one,  of 
many  surrounding  conditions  influencing  growth." 1 

Accepting  for  the  moment  the  popular  view  that  the 
mind  can  be  trained  by  any  subject  whatever,  with  the 
limitation  that  certain  subjects  are  better  for  training 
purposes  than  others,  let  us  see  how  the  thing  works 
out.  Take  three  men,  one  trained  as  exclusively  as 
is  possible  on  the  Classics,  another  on  Science  (say 
Biology),  and  the  third  on  Mathematics.  To  test  the 
effect  of  the  training,  a  problem  is  set  to  all  three,  — 
the  same  problem.  Let  it  be  to  decipher  a  certain 
hieroglyphic  inscription.  There  is  a  feeling  in  your 
mind,  is  there  not,  that  somehow  this  is  not  quite  fair. 
The  mathematician  and  the  biologist  would  probably 
at  once  object  that  this  test  gave  the  classic  an  undue 
advantage,  and  when  it  is  pointed  out  that  the  inscrip- 
tion is  in  neither  Latin  nor  Greek,  the  ready  reply  is 
that  it  is  at  least  in  the  line  of  language,  and  therefore 
easier  for  the  scholar  than  for  the  others.  When  the 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  342. 


FORMAL  EDUCATION  109 

problem  of  determining  the  age  of  a  given  stratum  of 
rock  is  substituted,  it  is  the  classic's  turn  to  object, 
and  even  the  mathematician  is  not  pleased.  It  is  not 
a  question  in  Biology  exactly,  but  it  is  more  in  the 
biologist's  line.  Tossing  about  for  a  perfectly  neutral 
test,  our  eyes  fall  upon  a  chess-board,  and  we  set  our 
three  examinees  to  discover  how,  in  the  minimum  num- 
ber of  moves,  to  place  the  knight  upon  every  square 
of  the  board.  Even  here  there  is  dissatisfaction.  It 
conies  out  that  the  classic  and  the  biologist  consider 
this  problem  to  be  of  a  mathematical  character.  It 
calls  into  play  the  same  faculties  as  Mathematics. 

The  result  of  our  experiment  appears  to  be  that  each 
of  the  subjects  in  question  cultivates  not  the  mind  in 
general,  but  in  certain  special  directions.  In  other 
words,  formal  education  is  not  quite  so  formal  as  it  is 
supposed  to  be ;  it  is  not  quite  dissociated  from  the 
special  subject.  For  when  we  talk  about  a  mathemati- 
cal mind,  we  surely  do  not  mean  exactly  what  we  say. 
It  cannot  be  seriously  maintained  that  the  mind  acts 
in  one  way  in  Mathematics  and  in  another  in  Classics. 
If,  then,  each  subject  develops  a  special  form  of  mind, 
as  indicated  by  the  terms  mathematical  mind,  philo- 
sophical mind,  scientific  mind,  this  special  form  must 
be  connected  with  the  matter,  —  the  content  of  the 
mind. 

To  illustrate :  suppose  the  problem  set  to  our  three 
men  is  to  find  a  lost  will,  which  of  the  three  would 
have  the  best  chance  to  succeed?  The  question  is  diffi- 
cult, and  not  in  itself  important.  We  may  be  wrong 
in  our  answer ;  the  important  point  is  upon  what  prin- 


110  THE   HE11BARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

ciple  do  we  proceed  to  our  conclusion.  The  mathe- 
matician we  have  at  once  dismissed.  The  idea  of  a 
mathematician,  as  mathematician,  finding  anything  that 
is  lost  is  more  than  improbable  ;  it  is  amusing.  Some 
may  be  inclined  to  back  the  biologist,  from  the  well- 
known  methods  of  patient  study  that  his  science  de- 
mands. But  on  the  whole  the  classic  will  be  the  most 
likely  to  succeed,  and  that  not  because  he  has  a  better- 
trained  mind,  but  because  his  studies  have  brought  to 
him  greater  acquaintance  with  human  nature  (part  of 
his  subject  haughtily  calls  itself  Humanity),  and  there 
is  usually  a  good  deal  of  human  nature  about  the  losing 
of  a  will. 

Thus,  if  it  is  of  importance  to  discover  the  most 
likely  searcher,  we  consider  the  content  of  the  minds 
submitted ;  if  it  is  important  to  find  the  will,  we  send 
for  an  experienced  lawyer. 

It  is  not  maintained  that  this  lawyer  has  a  better- 
trained  mind  than  our  three  friends,  but  he  has  a  big- 
ger and  better-arranged  lost-will  apperception  mass. 

If  it  be  true  that  this  formal  education  is  possible,  if 
the  matter  of  study  is  only  of  consequence  as  a  sort  of 
whetstone  of  the  mind,1  why  do  not  teachers  choose 
pleasanter  subjects  than  at  present?  We  can  readily 
see  the  force  of  an  argument  that  condemns  cricket  as  a 
complete  instrument  of  education.  It  may  be  a  capital 
hand-and-eye  training,  but  a  certain  number  of  "  facul- 
ties "  are  left  idle.  There  must  be  indoor  as  well  as 
outdoor  education.  But  when  the  boy  comes  in  from 

1  Cf.  The  Whetstone  of  Witte,  which  turns  out  to  be  a  book  on 
Algebra  published  by  Recorde  in  1567. 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  111 

cricket,  why  call  him  away  from  his  chess,  to  study  Eu- 
clid? This  game  is  said  to  exercise  pretty  much  the 
same  faculties  as  Mathematics.  Many  boys  like  chess 
and  hate  Mathematics ;  why  not  give  them  what  they 
want?  The  usual  answer  is  that  chess  does  not  offer 
a  wide  enough  field.  The  real  answer  is  that,  after  all, 
chess-training  is  only  training  in  chess. 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  the  same  remark  applies  to 
other  studies  ?  Is  it  very  unusual  to  find  a  man  bril- 
liant at,  say,  Mathematics,  and  a  dolt  at  all  else  ?  Is  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  Classics  any  guarantee  of 
intellectual  power  in  other  departments? 

But  perhaps  the  most  effective  argument  against 
formal  education  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which 
sin,  vice,  and  crime  are  treated  as  educational  agencies. 

What  could  call  into  play  more  of  a  boy's  faculties 
than  orchard-robbing  ?  Almost  all  the  virtues  are 
trained  in  the  exercise  of  this  vice.  The  necessary 
planning  demands  prudence,  forethought,  caution.  The 
choosing  of  the  right  moment  implies  careful  obser- 
vation, judicious  estimate  of  character,  and  intelligent 
calculation  of  probabilities.  The  actual  expedition 
demands  the  greatest  courage,  firmness,  self-control. 
Climbing  the  tree  and  seizing  the  fruit  are  only  possi- 
ble as  the  result  of  the  most  accurate  adjustment  of 
means  to  end.  All  the  results  aimed  at  in  the  most 
liberal  intellectual  education  are  here  secured ;  no 
teacher  is  required  ;  and  the  boy  enjoys  it.  Why 
does  not  apple-stealing  rank  with  Latin  and  Mathe- 
matics as  a  mental  gymnastic? 

Why  do  we  hear  so  little   of   education   in  crime  ? 


112  THE   HERBAKTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

We  have  myriads  of  tracts  on  education  and  crime,  in 
which  the  former  is  generally  treated  as  a  more  or  less 
effective  antidote  to  the  latter,  yet  I  do  not  chance  to 
know  any  treatise  on  the  technical  training  of  thieves 
and  cut-throats. 

It  is  true  that  one  turns  with  a  flicker  of  hope  to 
ancient  Spartan  education.  Who  has  not  at  Sunday- 
school  or  church  been  called  upon  to  admire  the  heroism 
of  the  Lacedaemonian  boy  who  allowed  the  fox  con- 
cealed below  his  cloak,  to  eat  out  his  entrails,  rather 
than  complain  ?  Who  has  not  as  a  youngster  wondered 
why  this  heroic  boy  let  the  fox  injure  him?  And  who 
has  not  been  shocked  when  in  maturer  life  he  found  that 
the  boy  let  the  fox  feed  upon  him '  rather  than  confess 
that  he  had  stolen  it  ?  The  moral  seems  to  vanish  from 
the  pretty  tale,  till  a  new  one  is  supplied  when  we  read 
some  such  sentence  as  this  :  "  The  formal  education  of 
Spartan  boys  consisted  mainly  of  Gymnastics,  Music, 
Choric  Dancing,  and  Larceny."1 

At  first  sight  this  seems  to  drive  the  moral  farther 
off  than  ever  ;  but  by  and  by  we  remember  that  it  was 
held  honourable  among  the  Spartan  folk  for  a  boy  to 
steal  without  being  detected,  while  to  steal  and  be 
found  out  was  regarded  as  the  lowest  depth  of  degrada- 
tion. The  noble  Spartan  boy  in  the  tale  preferred  his 
honour  to  his  entrails. 

Here  we  seem  to  have  a  distinct  recognition  of  the 

value  of  crime  as  an  educational  organon.     Thieving 

ranked  with  Music  and  Gymnastics  as  an  essential  part 

of  a  liberal  education.     The  training  power  of  crime 

1  Great  Educators,  "Aristotle,"  p.  47. 


FORMAL   EDUCATION"  113 

appears  to  be  fully  recognized.  It  is  not  till  we  have 
looked  into  the  matter  closely  that  we  find  the  Spartans 
unworthy  of  the  praise  we  had  prepared  for  their  broad- 
minded  views  on  the  subjects  of  the  educational  curricu- 
lum. Larceny  was  taught,  not  as  a  branch  of  culture ; 
it  was  studied  as  a  base  utilitarian  craft  for  practical 
application.  It  was  a  mere  case  of  setting  a  thief  to 
catch  a  thief.  The  Helots  caused  continual  uneasiness 
at  Sparta  ;  they  had  to  be  kept  under  in  some  way, 
and  as  they  were  tricky  and  cunning,  the  young  Spar- 
tans had  to  be  trained  in  thieving  in  order  that  the 
cunning  of  the  slaves  should  be  met  by  the  cunning  of 
the  masters.  Archbishop  Potter  says  simply  :  "  Steal- 
ing was  encouraged  to  make  them  adroit "  ;  l  but 
Dr.  Davidson  discredits  this  culture  explanation  by 
his  statement  :  "  The  purpose  of  this  curious  discipline 
was  to  enable  its  subjects  to  act,  QII  occasion,  as  detec- 
tives and  assassins  among  the  ever-discontented  and 
rebellious  Helots."2  Even  on  this  view  there  seems  to 
be  a  certain  element  of  general  training  introduced. 
At  first  sight  thieving  seems,  with  Spartan  practice,  to 
be  generalized  into  murdering.  But  further  examina- 
tion shows  that  thieving  only  taught  something  which 
was  common  to  thieving  and  murdering.  The  boys 
were  trained  to  steal  not  in  order  that,  they  might  be 
able  to  steal,  but  in  order  to  be  able  to  sneak  and  mur- 
der. In  order  to  steal  one  must  sneak  ;  in  order  to 
murder  one  must  sneak.  Therefore  the  boy  who  can 
steal  has  learned  at  least  part  of  the  art  of  murder. 

1  Grecian  Antiquities,  p.  665,  note. 

2  Great  Educators,  "Aristotle,"  p.  48. 


114  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Thieving  has  consequently,  after  all,  an  exceedingly 
limited  field  in  education. 

Yet  if  formal  education  is  possible,  then  instruction 
in  crime  ought  to  be  educationally  as  important  and 
profitable  as  instruction  in  Science  and  Classics.  Indeed 
crime  has  a  very  special  advantage  as  an  educational 
organon,  since  it  is  entirely  free  from  professional 
prejudices.  So  much  has  been  written  of  late  on  "  edu- 
cational values,"  that  no  one  can  treat  of  Classics  or 
Science  or  Mathematics,  or  Modern  Languages,  or 
History,  without  being  at  once  thrust  into  a  class,  and 
regarded  as  a  partisan. 

From  this  taint,  at  least,  crime  is  quite  free.  Fagin's 
school,  as  an  intellectual  training-ground,  is  virgin  soil 
for  the  educationist,  who  can  there  test  theories  with- 
out fear  of  his  results  being  complicated  by  the  accu- 
mulated prejudices  of  scores  of  predecessors.  It  is,  no 
doubt,  humiliating  to  have  to  turn  to  a  mere  novel 
instead  of  to  a  large,  closely  printed,  and  respect- 
ably dull  treatise.  But  education  in  crime  is  as  yet 
only  in  the  natural -history  stage  of  development. 
Dickens  merely  describes,  he  does  not  explain.  To  a 
later  stage  belong  the  theories  —  and  the  dulness. 

If  you  examine  your  mind  at  this  moment,  you  will 
probably  find  it  in  a  state  of  somewhat  indignant  con- 
fusion. Two  ideas  have  been  called  into  the  field  of 
consciousness  at  the  same  time,  two  ideas  that  have 
always  regarded  themselves  as  natural  enemies  to  each 
other  ;  and  those  two  ideas  have  been  asked  to  join  in 
the  friendly  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  As  two  boys 
caught  by  the  master  in  the  very  throes  of  war,  and 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  115 

ordered  by  him  to  shake  hands,  hang  back  scowling  at 
each  other,  not  otherwise  stand  in  your  minds  at  this 
moment  the  two  ideas  of  Crime  and  Education. 

A  little  analysis  of  your  thoughts  will  probably  show 
you  that  the  underlying  belief  that  caused  this  disturb- 
ance is  really  that  crime  needs  no  teaching.  There  is 
a  prevailing  opinion  that  crime  is  easily  attained  ;  that 
anybody  can  be  a  criminal.  If  some  speakers  and 
writers  are  to  be  believed,  the  difficulty  is  all  the  other 
way,  and  the  great  trouble  of  an  ordinary  man's  life 
is  to  keep  from  becoming  a  criminal.  Now  while  it  is 
quite  easy  for  any  of  us  to  stumble  clumsily  into  crime, 
it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  we  have  any  claim  to  rank 
among  criminals  —  real  criminals,  professional  crimi- 
nals. We  all  occasionally  blunder  into  a  syllogism,  but 
we  are  not  on  that  account  arrogant  enough  to  call  our- 
selves logicians.  To  be  a  successful  criminal  requires 
as  careful  training  as  to  be  a  successful  judge,  and  if 
we  wish  to  investigate  the  educational  value  of  crime, 
we  must  study  it  under  the  most  favourable  circum- 
stances, in  one  of  the  best  schools. 

We  cannot  more  fitly  introduce  Fagin's  school  than 
by  a  report  supposed  to  be  written  by  an  emancipated 
inspector  of  schools  who  has  enlightened  views  on  the 
relation  between  education  and  crime.  Such  a  man,  re- 
garding skilful  crime  as  the  immediate  object  of  the 
school,  with  mental  training  as  a  secondary  and  inevita- 
ble result,  might  well  produce  some  such  report  as  the 
following  :  — 

"  I  have  again  to  .call  attention  to  the  unsuitability 
of  the  school-premises.  Only  a  low  view  of  crime  can 


116  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

be  formed  in  a  cellar.  If  this  matter  is  not  attended 
to,  it  will  be  necessary  next  year  to  recommend  a  sub- 
stantial reduction  under  Art.  Onety-one.  The  organ- 
ization and  discipline  are,  on  the  whole,  excellent,  and 
the  higher  grant  is  recommended,  though  the  teachers 
should  be  informed  that  toasting-forks  and  frying-pans 
are  not  suitable  instruments  for  maintaining  order. 
The  tone  of  the  school  is  excellent,  and  reflects  great 
credit  on  the  head-master,  Mr.  Fagin,  whose  enthusi- 
asm cannot  fail  to  have  an  excellent  effect  in  stimulat- 
ing his  pupils.  The  general  character  of  the  instruction 
in  the  ordinary  subjects  is  creditable.  The  text-books 
used,  however,  are  of  a  low  order  and  are  now  out  of 
date  ;  they  must  be  changed  if  the  higher  grant  is  to  be 
recommended  next  year.  There  is  a  lack,  too,  of  suitable 
occupation  for  the  new  pupils  while  the  old  ones  are  at 
their  usual  work.  This  must  be  at  once  attended  to. 
The  physical  exercises  were  gone  through  with  pre- 
cision and  heartiness.  Object  lessons  are  well  attended 
to  ;  one  of  the  senior  pupil-teachers,  William  Sikes, 
deserving  special  praise  for  his  effective  lesson  on  the 
loading  of  a  pistol,  and  the  connection  between  a  loaded 
pistol  and  holding  one's  tongue." 

Have  you  imagination  enough  to  picture  Mr.  Fagin 
sitting  by  his  fire-side,  a  saveloy  in  one  hand  and  this 
report  in  the  other,  reading  with  the  palpitating  interest 
that  the  works  of  school  inspectors  and  superintendents 
always  command  ? 

"  Premises,"  he  mutters,  "  same  old  story.  Good 
thing  that  isn't  my  lay.  Excellent  —  Ha !  —  on  the 
whole  —  as  usual,  forks  and  frying-pans  —  what  eyes 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  117 

those  inspectors  have  got !  Must  keep  them  out  of 
sight  next  time  he  comes  round.  Crreat  credit  —  come, 
that's  something  like  —  enthusiasm — stimulating.  Now 
that's  what  I  call  —  hillo  !  What's  this  about  text- 
books? I  didn't  make  the  text-books  :  that's  the  pub- 
lisher's look-out.  They're  the  easiest  I  can  find." 

Here  we  may  be  permitted  to  interrupt  Fagin,  first 
of  all  to  quote  from  Dickens  the  passage  referring  to 
the  text-books,  and  then  to  show  that,  as  is  not  seldom 
the  case,  the  teacher  and  not  the  publisher  was  to 
blame  for  whatever  was  wrong. 

Oliver  is  described  as  turning  over  the  leaves  of  a 
book  that  has  been  left  to  enliven  his  solitude  on  the 
eve  of  a  crime  into  which  he  is  to  be  dragged.  "  He 
turned  over  the  leaves,  carelessly  at  first ;  but  lighting 
on  a  passage  which  attracted  his  attention,  he  soon 
became  intent  upon  the  volume.  It  was  a  history  of 
the  lives  and  trials  of  great  criminals ;  and  the  pages 
were  soiled  and  thumbed  with  use.  Here  he  read  of 
dreadful  crimes  that  made  the  blood  run  cold  ;  of  secret 
murders  that  had  been  committed  by  the  lonely  way- 
side ;  of  bodies  hidden  from  the  eye  of  man  in  deep  pits 
and  wells,  which  would  not  keep  them  down,  deep  as 
they  were,  but  had  yielded  them  up  at  last,  after  many 
years,  and  so  maddened  the  murderers  with  the  sight, 
that  in  their  horror  they  had  confessed  their  guilt,  and 
yelled  for  the  gibbet  to  end  their  agony.  Here,  too, 
he  read  of  men  who,  lying  in  their  beds  at  dead  of 
night,  had  been  tempted  (so  they  said)  and  led  on,  by 
their  own  bad  thoughts,  to  such  dreadful  bloodshed  as 
it  made  the  flesh  creep  and  the  limbs  quail  to  think  of. 


118  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  terrible  descriptions  were  so  real  and  vivid  that  the 
sallow  pages  seemed  to  turn  red  with  gore,  and  the  words 
upon  them  to  be  sounded  in  his  ears,  as  if  they  were 
whispered  in  hollow  murmurs  by  the  spirits  of  the  dead. " 1 

This  is  obviously  not  the  sort  of  literature  to  en- 
courage enterprise  in  crime.  Had  Fagin  been  able  to 
spare  time  from  his  other  professional  work  to  edit  this 
manual,  you  may  be  sure  the  blue  pencil  would  have 
been  unflinchingly  used.  Those  totally  uncalled-for 
confessions  would  cease  to  mar  the  charm  of  the  nar- 
rative ;  the  gibbet  would  be  carefully  excised ;  those 
pits  and  wells  would  have  been  seen  to,  and  made 
decently  corpse-tight.  We  are  sure  of  this,  for  Fagin 
is  clearly  better  than  his  books.  Listen  to  his  own 
method  of  story-telling  :  — 

"  At  other  times  the  old  man  would  tell  them  stories 
of  robberies  he  had  committed  in  his  younger  days ; 
mixed  up  with  so  much  that  was  droll  and  curious  that 
Oliver  could  not  help  laughing  heartily,  and  showing 
that  he  was  amused  in  spite  of  all  his  better  feelings. "  2 

There  speaks  the  true  teacher.  There  is  a  good 
chance  of  a  boy  coming  to  something  in  crime  with 
lessons  like  that.  Yet  Fagin  is  not  the  only  genuine 
teacher  in  the  school.  The  object  lesson  commended 
by  the  inspector  is  well  worth  reproducing  in  full. 
Not  every  lesson  given  by  certificated  teachers  in  this 
country  has  the  point  and  finish  of  Mr.  Sikes'  effort. 
Addressing  the  trembling  Oliver,  who  is  to  be  forced 
to  accompany  the  burglar  on  professional  business,  Bill 
begins :  - 

i  Oliver  Twist,  Chap.  XX.  »  Ibid^  Chap.  XVIII. 


FORMAL  EDUCATION  119 

"'Come  here,  young  un;  and  let  me  read  you  a 
lectur',  which  is  as  well  got  over  at  once.' ' 

But  Bill  is  better  than  his  word.  Most  teachers 
begin  by  telling  the  class  that  they  are  going  to  give  a 
lesson,  and  then  proceed  to  give  a  lecture.  Bill  does 
precisely  the  opposite:  his  lecture  at  once  develops  into 
a  genuine  object  lesson:  — 

"Thus  addressing  his  new  pupil,  Mr.  Sikes  pulled 
off  Oliver's  cap  and  threw  it  into  a  corner ;  and  then, 
taking  him  by  the  shoulder,  sat  himself  down  by  the 
table,  and  stood  the  boy  in  front  of  him. 

"  '  Now,  first  :  do  you  know  wot  this  is  ?  '  inquired 
Sikes,  taking  up  a  pocket  pistol  which  lay  on  the  table. 

"  Oliver  replied  in  the  affirmative. 

"  '  Well  then,  look  here,'  continued  Sikes.  '  This  is 
powder;  that  'ere's  a  bullet;  and  this  is  a  little  bit  of 
a  old  hat  for  waddin'.' 

"Oliver  murmured  his  comprehension  of  the  different 
bodies  referred  to;  and  Mr.  Sikes  proceeded  to  load 
the  pistol,  with  great  nicety  and  deliberation. 

" '  Now  it's  loaded,'  said  Mr.  Sikes,  when  he  had 
finished. 

"  '  Yes,  I  see  it  is,  sir,'  replied  Oliver. 

" '  Well,'  said  the  robber,  grasping  Oliver's  wrist 
tightly,  and  putting  the  barrel  so  close  to  his  temple 
that  they  touched ;  at  which  moment  the  boy  could  not 
repress  a  start ;  '  if  you  speak  a  word  when  you're  out 
o'  doors  with  me,  except  when  I  speak  to  you,  that 
loading  will  be  in  your  head  without  notice.  So,  if  you 
do  make  up  your  mind  to  speak  without  leave,  say  your 
prayers  first,.' 


120  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  Having  bestowed  a  scowl  upon  the  object  of  this 
warning,  to  increase  its  effect,  Mr.  Sikes  continued. 

" '  As  near  as  I  know,  there  isn't  anybody  as  would 
be  asking  very  parti  ckler  arter  you,  if  you  was  dis- 
posed of ;  so  I  needn't  take  this  devil-and-all  of  trouble 
to  explain  matters  to  you,  if  it  warn't  for  your  own 
good.  D'ye  hear  me  ? '  " 1 

Matter  apart,  this  lesson  would  probably  knock  an 
excellent  out  of  any  inspector. 

So  far  we  have  found  no  important  difference  between 
Fagin's  method  and  those  recommended  in  the  ordinary 
school-management  books  meant  for  less  interesting  if 
more  legitimate  teachers.  Indeed,  the  more  carefully 
we  examine  Fagin's  proceedings,  the  more  orthodox  do 
his  methods  appear.  He  relies  upon  the  same  motives 
of  emulation  with  which  we  are  familiar. 

" '  Ah  !  She's  a  clever  girl,  my  dears,'  said  the  Jew, 
turning  round  to  his  young  friends,  and  shaking  his 
head  gravely,  as  if  in  mute  admonition  to  them  to  fol- 
low the  bright  example  they  had  just  beheld." 

And  pupil-teacher  Sikes  loyally  chimes  in,  as  is  fitting. 

" '  She's  a  honour  to  her  sex,'  said  Mr.  Sikes  filling 
his  glass,  and  smiting  the  table  with  his  enormous  fist. 
'  Here's  her  health,  and  wishing  they  was  all  like  her.' "  2 

Precept  is  joined  to  example  in  the  game  of  picking 
pockets  in  which  Oliver  at  first  joined,  and  even  when 
the  new  pupil's  dislike  of  and  unfitness  for,  this  trick 
became  plain,  the  wily  master  was  not  discouraged. 
He  knew  the  value  of  mere  mechanical  imitation,  as 
well  as  the  most  experienced  among  us. 

1  Oliver  Twist,  Chap.  XX.  2  Ibid.,  Chap.  XIII. 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  121 

"  From  this  day,  Oliver  was  seldom  left  alone  ;  but 
was  placed  in  almost  constant  communication  with  the 
two  boys,  who  played  at  the  old  game  with  the  Jew 
every  day  :  whether  for  their  improvement  or  Oliver's, 
Mr.  Fagin  best  knew"1 

In  short,  Mr.  Fagin  acts  precisely  as  a  better-trained 
and  more  skilful  McChoakumchild  2  might.  The  only 
difference  is  that  McChoakumchild  teaches  virtue,  Fa- 
gin  vice.  This  being  so,  what  are  the  intellectual  results 
in  the  two  cases  ?  Apart  from  the  matter  studied, 
whose  pupil  shows  to  more  advantage,  McChoakum- 
child's  or  Fagin's  ? 

Oliver  Twist  and  John  Dawkins,  otherwise  known  as 
the  Artful  Dodger,  are  expressly  stated  to  be  of  the 
same  age.  Oliver  had  been  brought  up  on  virtue  — 
that  is,  in  the  workhouse.  Dawkins  had  been  reared 
on  vice.  Which  had  the  better-trained  mind  ?  Dick- 
ens certainly  did  not  intend  his  readers  to  regard 
Oliver  as  a  fool  —  Oliver  is  supposed  to  be  the  hero  of 
the  story.  Why,  then,  does  the  reader  close  the  book 
with  the  more  or  less  contemptuous  belief  that  Oliver 
is  a  noodle,  —  a  good  little  boy  who  by  all  the  rules  of 
the  game  ought  to  have  died  under  Giles'  blunderbuss  ? 
Dickens  means  us  to  think  of  his  hero  as  a  pale-faced, 
intelligent,  indeed  spirituel  boy,  and  only  fails  because 
the  Artful  Dodger  completely  outshines  his  virtuous 
rival  in  the  favour  of  the  reader.  No  doubt  it  is  hardly 
fair  to  compare  a  workhouse  pupil  with  the  brightest 
ornament  of  Fagin's  Academy.  But  take  a  wider 
range,  and  the  result  is  the  same.  It  is  a  matter  of  the 
1  Oliver  Twist,  Chap.  XV HI,  2  Vide  Dickens,  Hard  Times, 


122  THE   HBRBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

most  trite  remark  that  the  street  Arab,  brought  up 
among  vice  and  squalor,  is  intellectually  much  brighter 
than  his  better-fed,  and  supposed-to-be  better-taught 
rival  of  respectable  parentage.  Such  a  widespread 
impression  must  have  some  sort  of  foundation,  and  it  is 
obviously  of  the  first  importance  to  us  as  teachers  to 
find  out  how  much  truth  there  is  underlying  it.  For 
if  the  popular  notion  implies  exactly  what  appears  on 
the  surface,  our  profession  has  to  face  a  very  grave 
charge.  If  the  gutter  produces  better  intellectual  re- 
sults than  the  primary  school,  then  shall  the  discon- 
tented ratepayer  have  a  genuine  grievance  at  last. 

To  begin  with,  the  method  of  the  gutter  has  the 
great  advantage  of  the  compulsion  of  necessity.  What 
can  the  most  zealous  compulsory  officer  do,  what  can 
the  most  supple  cane  accomplish,  in  comparison  with 
the  persuasive  voice  of  the  Mother  of  Invention?  We 
in  school  teach  our  pupils  certain  things  in  order  that 
"  by  and  by  "  they  may  know  how  to  do  certain  other 
things.  Fagin  and  his  pupils  seek  to  attain  an  obvious 
and  immediate  end.  It  may  reasonably  be  interposed 
here  :  if  Fagin's  method  of  direct  teaching  produces 
better  results  than  our  indirect  methods,  why  not  fol- 
low his  lead  ?  It  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  complaint.  In  some  respects  our  school 
methods  are  too  indirect.  Sufficient  care  is  not  taken 
to  let  a  child  see  the  "  sense  "  of  what  he  is  learning. 
We  are  too  fond  of  telling  him  to  wait  till  he  is  big, 
and  then  he  will  understand  all  that.  But  while  so 
much  is  admitted,  it  must  be  remarked  that  direct 
teaching  is  not  always  desirable  outside  of  the  gutter  — 


FOKMAL   EDUCATION  123 

nor  indeed  always  possible.  In  the  third  place  and 
chiefly,  it  is  at  least  very  questionable  whether  Fagin's 
methods  do  produce  better  results. 

In  the  first  place,  the  comparison  between  the  street 
urchin  and  the  primary-school  boy  is  unfair,  because 
of  the  greater  struggle  for  existence  among  the  street 
urchins.  A  certain  principle,  known  as  the  Survival  of 
the  fittest,  has  much  more  scope  in  the  gutter  than  in  a 
primary  school.  In  Fagin's  Academy  the  physically 
weak  go  rapidly  to  the  wall,  the  intellectually  weak  to 
the  lock-up.  What  a  waste  of  gutter  children  goes  to 
the  making  of  one  Artful  Dodger  !  Hunger  and  cold, 
whiskey  and  prison,  do  their  work;  a  few  brilliant  ex- 
ceptions are  left,  and  the  ordinary  schoolboy  is  com- 
pared with  a  Charley  Bates,  or  an  Artful  Dodger. 

But  from  our  present  point  of  view,  the  most  impor- 
tant consideration  remains.  What  is  made  the  test  of 
intelligence  in  the  two  cases  ?  A  little  exercise  of  the 
memory  will  make  it  clear  that  almost  in  every  case 
where  the  street  Arab  has  shown  great  intelligence  it 
has  been  a  matter  of  what  is  called  "  the  main  chance," 
looking  after  number  one.  This  remark  must  not  be 
misconstrued.  There  is  no  attempt  here  to  deny  the 
good  qualities  of  the  Arab.  We  have  all  heard  won- 
derful tales  of  the  kindness  of  the  poor  to  the  poor, 
which  we  are  but  too  glad  to  believe.  Only,  it  is  well  to 
note  that  even  in  his  generosity  the  Arab  is  concerned 
with  the  main  chance  —  his  skill  is  still  in  how  he  can 
make  ends  meet.  His  intellect  is  tested  by  his  power 
to  keep  himself  and  others  alive. 

This  is,  indeed,  generally  admitted,  but  the  natural 


124  THE   HERBAETIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

inference  is  not  drawn.  Instead  of  telling  in  favour  of 
the  primary-school  boy,  it  is  usually  turned  against  him 
in  some  such  sneer  as  this :  "  Your  schoolboy  is  all 
very  well  with  his  vulgar  fractions,  and  his  parsing  — 
throw  him  into  the  street  and  see  how  he  and  his  edu- 
cation will  compete  with  the  illiterate  gamins."  As 
well  might  one  argue  "  Your  monkey  is  all  very  well 
with  his  cerebral  convolutions  and  all  that ;  but  throw 
him  from  the  top  of  the  Eiffel  Tower,  and  see  how  he 
will  compete  with  the  swallow  that  you  say  is  intel- 
lectually so  much  his  inferior." 

The  apperception  masses  in  the  schoolboy's  mind 
are  quite  different  from  those  in  the  gamin's,  and  if  we 
always  make  our  comparisons  in  terms  of  gamin  masses, 
naturally  the  schoolboy  will  always  appear  at  a  disad- 
vantage. It  is  a  difference  not  of  mental  power,  but  of 
mental  content. 

The  same  sort  of  comparison  is  being  made  every 
day  between  townspeople  and  country-people.  Phi- 
lology is  eloquent  with  abuse  of  the  countryman,  the 
rustic,  the  clown,  the  lout,  the  boor,  the  yokel,  the  clod- 
hopper. Naturally  those  fancy  pictures  are  drawn  by 
townspeople,  who  take  care  that  the  picture  gets  in 
every  case  a  city  background.  A  countryman  implores 
a  policeman  to  pilot  him  across  the  Strand ;  does  this 
prove  that  the  policeman  can  judge  better  of  speeds 
and  distances  than  the  countryman?  Change  the 
scene  to  the  country,  and  the  roles  are  exactly  re- 
versed. The  policeman  makes  the  wildest  guesses  at 
distances,  and  can  form  no  estimate  of  the  speed  of 
hares  and  crows, 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  125 

We  can  all  judge,  we  can  all  reason,  not  so  much  ac- 
cording to  our  "  natural  powers,"  as  they  are  called,  as 
according  to  our  familiarity  with  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion. We  should  not  say  that  So-and-so  is  a  very 
clever  fellow,  but  that  he  is  very  clever  in  this  or  that 
direction.  A  man  may  be  a  distinguished  microscopist 
who  can  observe  to  the  most  uncomfortably  small  part 
of  a  millimetre,  and  yet  be  quite  unaware  that  his  stu- 
dents are  copying  under  his  very  nose  at  examination ; 
and  are  we  not  inclined  to  doubt  the  philosophic  powers 
of  any  thinker  who  has  enough  society  observation  to 
recognize  his  friends  in  the  street  ? 

De  Morgan's  ideal  of  education  — "  to  know  every- 
thing about  something,  and  something  about  every- 
thing "  —  represents  approximately  every  man's  actual 
state  of  knowledge.  We  may  not  quite  know  every- 
thing about  something  in  the  sense  of  the  German  phi- 
losophers, but  we  all  know  practically  all  that  is  worth 
knowing  about  something  —  if  it  be  only  the  best  way 
of  filling  a  pipe,  or  twisting  a  curl  paper ;  and  the  far- 
ther afield  we  go  from  our  favourite  piece  of  knowledge, 
the  more  uncomfortable  do  we  feel,  and  the  slower  does 
the  mind  act. 

For  each  individual,  the  contents  of  the  universe  fall 
into  a  Cosmos  special  to  himself,  and  in  the  centre  of 
which  he  stands.  The  matters  in  which  he  is  most  in- 
terested crowd  close  up  to  the  centre,  and  among  those 
his  mind  acts  freely  and  rapidly.  The  farther  any 
matter  is  from  the  centre,  the  less  freely  does  his  mind 
work  in  it,  till  at  last,  at  the  outer  edge  of  this  Cosmos, 
the  mind  reaches  an  endless  fringe  of  what  is  practically 


126  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

unknown.  The  range  of  a  man's  intellectual  activity 
may  be  not  inaptly  represented  diagrammatically  by 
one  of  those  ancient  charts  of  the  world,  in  which  the 
Mediterranean  is  marked  very  boldly,  if  not  too  accu- 
rately, in  the  centre,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  is  repre- 
sented in  ever  vaguer  and  more  hesitating  outline  as  it 
recedes  from  the  known  centre  till  it  loses  itself  in  a 
vague  beyond  pictured  by  clouds,  and  labelled  "  Cim- 
merian darkness." 

An  accomplished  oculist  talks  easily,  and  with  a  not 
unpleasant  touch  of  dogmatism,  about  the  eye  —  the 
eye  is  his  Mediterranean.  Of  the  ear  he  talks  still 
easily,  if  a  little  contemptuously,  but  the  touch  of 
dogmatism  has  gone.  Of  the  heart  he  talks  with  a 
familiarity  tempered  with  respect.  With  ever-waning 
confidence  and  waxing  respect,  he  speaks  of  general 
physiological  problems,  wide  biological  questions,  Greek, 
the  steam  engine,  bimetallism,  and  a  vast  etcetera  of 
the  almost  totally  unknown. 

In  short,  the  soul  is  not  a  mere  knife  that  may  be 
sharpened  on  any  whetstone,  and  when  sharpened  may 
be  applied  to  any  purpose,  —  to  cut  cheese  or  to  excise 
a  cancer.  The  knife  takes  character  from  the  whet- 
stone. The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  preparing  his 
Budget  has  not  a  better-trained  mind  than  the  illit- 
erate washerwoman  with  her  hand  in  the  stocking  foot 
near  rent  day  —  he  only  deals  with  higher  things.  No 
doubt  the  Chancellor  would  feel  as  helpless  in  the  art 
of  stocking-foot  economy  as  the  old  woman  would  if 
called  upon  to  deal  with  imperial  finance. 

Think  of  Laplace,  the  great  Laplace,  the  man  who 


FORMAL  EDUCATION  127 

made  the  theory,  dismissed  by  Napoleon  for  incapacity, 
and  say  whether  the  greatest  mind  may  be  truly  called 
great,  when  tested  apart  from  the  apperception  masses 
with  which  it  is  familiar.  Had  Laplace's  mind  been 
the  highly  trained  instrument  formal  educationists 
would  have  us  believe,  he  ought  to  have  been  as  good 
a  minister  as  mathematician. 

One  of  the  leading  ideas  in  Carlyle's  book  "  On 
Heroes  "  is  that  the  great  man  is  intrinsically  great ; 
that  a  great  poet  might  have  been  equally  well  a  great 
warrior  or  a  great  mathematician.  Observe,  the  state- 
ment is  "might  have  been."  That  a  great  poet  at  ma- 
turity may  become  a  great  warrior  or  mathematician, 
the  Herbartian  would  emphatically  deny.  Had  Napo- 
leon caught  Laplace  young,  and  given  him  political  work 
to  do,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  dismissal 
would  not  have  occurred  —  the  man  who  is  now  known 
as  the  great  mathematician  and  physicist  would  have 
been  known  as  a  great  minister  and  diplomat.  But 
if,  in  the  circumstances  that  actually  arose,  Napoleon 
had  been  more  patient,  and  had  given  the  great  mathe- 
matician a  longer  trial  than  the  few  weeks  that  history 
records,  it  is  quite  probable  that  Laplace  would  have 
made  a  good  average  second-rate  minister. 

A  combination  of  the  Carlylean  doctrine  of  the  con- 
vertibility of  genius,  and  the  Herbartian  doctrine  of 
mind  or  soul  building,  makes  the  best  philosophical 
blend  for  the  use  of  the  practical  teacher.  With  the 
whole  range  of  Philosophy  before  him  where  to  choose, 
the  teacher,  who  is  anxious  to  magnify  his  office,  will 
not  stir  a  foot  farther  afield. 


128  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

We  have  seen  that,  whether  interest  or  will  be  the 
determining  influence,  our  daily  experience  in  school 
drives  us  to  the  conclusion  that  by  the  time  pupils 
come  to  school  their  minds  have  all  the  appearance  of 
differing  in  original  quality  ;  but  it  does  not  at  all 
follow  that  by  appropriate  training  and  exercise  we  can 
raise  a  lower  quality  of  mind  to  a  higher.  All  that  we 
can  do  is  to  make  the  best  of  the  given  mind  —  and 
this  is  very  much.  The  difference  between  the  best 
and  the  worst  use  of  the  same  mind  is  enormous. 
Given  the  same  first-class  mind,  we  may  turn  out  an 
Artful  Dodger  or  a  James  Watt ;  given  the  same 
third-rate  mind,  and  we  may  develop  it  into  a  Bill 
Sikes  or  a  more  than  respectable  artisan. 

Do  not  for  a  moment  let  it  be  supposed  that  a  Her- 
bartian  regards  an  artisan  as  necessarily  of  the  third 
class.  Certain  haughty  philosophers  are  pleased  now 
and  then  to  be  greatly  surprised  at  the  intelligence 
occasionally  displayed  by  "common  people."  The 
Herbartian  is  not  astonished  either  by  the  occasional 
brilliancy  or  the  average  gloom.  Speaking  generally, 
the  artisan  is  not  in  a  very  favourable  position  for  in- 
creasing his  apperception  masses ;  therefore  he  is  seldom 
strikingly  different  from  his  fellows.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  intellect  may,  if  circumstances  favour,  turn 
out  as  good  work  as  comes  from  any  other  social 
grade. 

Why,  for  example,  are  pupil-teacher  candidates  for 
admission  to  the  British  training  colleges  supposed  to 
be  inferior  in  intelligence  to  the  students  of  the  same 
age  at  the  universities?  The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek. 


FORMAL  EDUCATION  129 

For  three  or  four  years  of  their  best  formative  time  the 
pupil-teachers  have  to  work  in  a  groove  where  their 
apperception  masses  have  110  chance  of  growing  in 
width,  though  they  certainly  do  grow  in  strength. 
Teaching  all  day,  and  parsing  and  analyzing  all  night, 
they  develop  abnormally  large  apperception  masses  in 
certain  directions,  with  the  result  that  the  ideas  form- 
ing part  of  those  masses  enter  into  so  powerful  coalitions 
among  themselves,  that  they  offer  an  almost  insuperable 
barrier  to  the  entrance  of  any  new  ideas.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  mistress  and  the  maid,  between  the 
master  and  the  workman,  and  between  the ,  country 
blacksmith  and  the  city  one,  can  all  be  explained  in 
pretty  much  the  same  way.  One  of  the  two  is  limited 
to  monotonous  work,  to  the  eternal  repetition  of  the 
same  thoughts  or  reflex  actions.  No  new  apperception 
masses  can  be  formed,  or,  at  any  rate,  fewer  such  masses 
can  appear  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other  ;  hence  the 
apparent  difference  in  intelligence.  It  is,  after  all,  not 
a  matter  of  minds,  but  of  masses. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  we  cannot  separate  the  mind 
from  its  content.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  pure  mind 
in  the  actual  practice  of  life,  whatever  there  may  be  in 
the  ultimate  analysis  of  Metaphysics.  Above  all,  it  is 
certain  that  we  cannot  exercise  the  mind  in  vacua.  Yet 
the  mind  is  admitted  to  work  in  the  same  way,  what- 
ever the  material  upon  which  it  acts.  The  mere  ex- 
istence of  the  science  of  Formal  Logic  is  sufficient  proof 
that  the  laws  of  thought  may  be  considered  quite  apart 
from  the  subject  upon  which  thought  may  be  exercised. 
It  is  generally  admitted  that  the  man  who  thinks  rapidly 


130  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

and  effectively  upon  a  given  subject  obeys  exactly  the 
same  logical  laws  as  the  slow  and  feeble  thinker.  How, 
then,  can  the  well-known  fact  be  explained  that  a  course 
of  study  does  quicken  the  thinking  powers  ? 

Herbert  Spencer  "has  a  pregnant  idea,  "  fact  organized 
into  faculty," l  which  may  help  us  to  answer.  A  fact, 
so  long  as  it  remains  outside  the  experience  of  an  indi- 
vidual, is  absolutely  non-existent  for  that  individual. 
But  even  when  it  is  brought  into  his  experience,  it  may 
be  quite  unintelligible  to  him,  may  be  incapable  of  any 
practical  application.  It  is  only  when  the  fact  has  been 
apperceived  by  the  soul,  and  has  had  its  place  among 
the  ideas  fixed,  that  it  becomes  a  power  in  that  soul.  A 
fact  thus  treated  ceases  to  be  a  dead,  inert  thing;  it 
acquires  a  force  of  its  own,  and  in  its  turn  acts  upon 
new  facts  presented  to  the  soul.  It  changes  its  posi- 
tion from  that  of  a  mere  bit  of  the  external  material 
upon  which  the  soul  acts,  to  that  of  an  integral  part  of 
the  soul  which  acts  upon  presented  material.  It  passes 
from  the  objective  to  the  subjective,  from  the  non-ego 
to  the  ego. 

To  this  extent  Spencer  himself  may  be  cited  as  a  sup- 
porter of  the  doctrine  of  apperception. 

Most  people  think  they  can  separate  themselves  from 
their  knowledge  ;  that  they  can  put  the  knowing  soul 
on  one  side,  and  the  known  content  on  the  other.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  know  any  one  part  of  what  we  know 
only  by  the  help  of  another  part.  As  soon  as  we  have 
separated  all  we  know  from  the  knowing  ego,  the  ego 

1  "  Knowledge  is  turned  into  faculty  as  soon  as  it  is  taken  in,  and 
forthwith  aids  in  the  general  function  of  thinking." — Education,  p.  90. 


FORMAL   EDUCATION  131 

itself  disappears.  Cogito  ergo  sum  is  the  ultimate  of 
mental  analysis,  but  we  cannot  cogitate  upon  nothing. 
Since,  then,  we  cannot  have  the  knowing  ego  by  itself, 
and  since  each  new  fact  is  acted  upon  by  the  facts  which 
then  form  part  of  the  apperceiving  soul,  it  follows  that 
the  more  facts  that  have  been  organized  into  faculty, 
the  more  readily  will  the  mind  act,  and  the  greater  will 
be  the  range  of  facts  upon  which  it  will  act  easily. 

There  are  here  two  different  qualities,  —  readiness 
and  range.  The  former  is  acquired  by  practice  in 
apperceiving  the  same  or  closely  allied  facts  ;  the  latter 
by  apperceiving  a  large  number  of  facts  of  different 
character.  A  chemist  acquires  from  his  work  great 
readiness  in  using  the  metric  system,  but  this  readiness 
does  not  extend  far  into  other  and  different  matters. 
If  the  chemist  desires  a  wide  range  of  mental  suscepti- 
bility, he  must  read  and  observe  widely. 

Within  certain  narrow  limits,  it  must  in  fairness 
be  admitted,  any  mental  exercise  whatever  does  de- 
velop the  whole  soul.1  Take  the  analogy  of  the  body; 
a  certain  amount  of  exercise  of  any  kind  will  maintain 
it  in  health.  Yet  even  here  if  special  kinds  of  skill  are 
required,  special  forms  of  training  must  be  adopted. 
Since  the  body  is  an  organism,  we  cannot  exercise  any 
one  part  of  it  without  affecting  every  other  part  at 
least  in  some  degree.  The  lop-sided  blacksmith  whose 
right  arm  is  more  fully  developed  than  his  left  has  still 
trained  the  whole  body  to  some  extent  through  his  work. 

1  But  cf.  some  very  remarkable  statements  on  the  teaching  of  read- 
ing quoted  from  Mr.  Moseley  by  Sir  John  Lubbock:  Addresses  (Mac- 
millan  &  Co.),  p.  72. 


132  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

As  it  is  manifestly  unwise  to  develop  a  boy's  muscles 
in  this  abnormal  way,  so  with  the  soul  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  develop  it  entirely  by  reaction  upon  matters 
belonging  only  to  the  technique  of  a  profession.  Cer- 
tain subjects  must  be  studied  as  correctives.  The 
school  curriculum  must  be  thorough  enough  to  produce 
readiness  in  all  the  subjects  studied;  and  at  the  same 
time  wide  enough  to  produce  a  fairly  uniform  all-round 
development. 

All  that  is  usually  included  under  the  term  training 
as  opposed  to  teaching,  seems  to  be  in  favour  of  the 
argument  for  formal  education.  A  boy  who  is  punct- 
ual, respectful,  and  obedient  at  school,  it  is  said,  will 
not  lose  those  good  qualities  when  he  goes  to  an  office. 
Obedience  may  be  learnt  at  school,  at  home,  in  prison, 
in  the  street,  in  the  workshop,  in  the  army.  Here,  at 
least,  the  material  upon  which  the  soul  acts  appears  to 
be  in  itself  of  no  consequence.  Yet  even  habits  bear 
the  trace  of  their  origin.  A  man  may  be  an  accurate 
sorcerer,  and  yet  a  very  inaccurate  arithmetician.  A 
nimble-witted  demonologist  may  be  a  slow-thinking 
botanist.  Is  it  so  very  unusual  to  find  a  boy  obedient 
at  school  and  unruly  at  home,  respectful  in  the  office 
and  impertinent  in  the  street  ?  To  come  to  a  later, 
and  therefore  more  telling  stage,  is  a  soldier's  obedi- 
ence quite  the  same  thing  as  an  artisan's  or  a  con- 
vict's ?  Do  we  not  all  become  subdued  to  that  we 
work  in  ? 

The  question  therefore  inevitably  emerges,  which  sort 
of  subjects  ought  we  to  adopt,  in  other  words,  which 
are  the  preferable  apperception  masses?  Herbert 


FORMAL  EDUCATION  133 

Spencer  has  a  theory  with  regard  to  the  relative  value 
of  school  subjects  which  he  has  evolved  out  of  his  sup- 
positions with  regard  to  the  principles  on  which  the 
universe  is  managed.  First  he  recognizes  the  two 
functions  of  a  school  subject,  —  the  value  of  the 
matter  studied,  and  the  value  of  the  training  de- 
rived from  the  study.  Economy  is  one  of  Nature's 
first  laws,  he  maintains,  and  therefore  she  could  not 
permit  the  intolerable  waste  that  must  be  involved  in 
the  theory  that  we  have  to  learn  one  set  of  things  for 
their  own  sake,  and  another  for  the  sake  of  the  train- 
ing derived  from  their  study.  We  are  therefore  com- 
pelled, he  argues,  to  regard  whichever  subjects  are 
most  useful  in  giving  necessary  knowledge  as  also  the 
best  fitted  for  training  the  mind. 

Without  at  all  subscribing  to  Spencer's  principles, 
we  are  led  to  something  very  like  his  conclusions.  It 
is  no  part  of  our  purpose  to  determine  which  subjects 
shall  be  taught  in  school,  or  out  of  it.  It  is  enough  if 
it  has  been  shown  that  the  choice  of  subjects  is  impor- 
tant ;  that  a  subject  must  be  chosen  for  its  own  sake,  not 
for  the  sake  of  its  general  effect  in  training  the  mind. 
This  is  no  base  utilitarian  conclusion,  no  truckling  to 
what  the  Germans  call  the  Brod  Wissenschaften,  the 
Bread-and-butter  Sciences.  The  rather  are  we  en- 
couraged, nay  required,  by  our  principles,  to  read  more 
widely  than  before.  Only,  we  are  to  read  and  study 
for  the  sake  of  the  subject  itself.  So  far  from  oppos- 
ing culture,  the  Herbartian  theory  is  the  strongest 
supporter  of  the  fine  arts  and  belles-lettres.  The 
increase  in  intension  and  extension  of  interest  is  the 


134  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

gauge  of  the  development  of  a  soul.  We  must  lose 
ourselves  in  our  subjects,  not  seek  to  keep  them  outside 
of  us. 

Art  for  Art's  sake  acquires  a  new  and  a  healthier 
meaning  from  the  Herbartian  standpoint. 

Teachers  used  to  have,  and  ignorant  people  still  have, 
a  pretty  theory  that  we  ought  to  learn  pieces  of  poetry  in 
order  to  cultivate  the  memory.  This  venerable,  this  ludi- 
crous fallacy  has  been  long  exploded,  yet  our  teachers 
continue  to  make  their  pupils  learn  poetry,  and  codes 
and  programmes  wisely  require  a  certain  amount  of 
repetition  every  year  from  each  child  who  studies 
English.  There  is  this  important  difference.  The 
point  of  view  is  entirely  changed.  Pupils  learn  poetry 
now  not  for  the  sake  of  the  memory,  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  poetry.  Would  it  not  be  well  if  the  same 
change  of  the  point  of  view  took  place  with  regard  to 
certain  other  subjects  which  need  not  at  this  moment 
be  specified?  It  is  something  that  the  principle  has 
been  recognized  and  acted  upon,  even  in  the  elementary 
school.  Herbartianism  is,  after  all,  not  entirely  in  the 
clouds. 

Coming  back  for  a  moment  to  our  illustration,  how 
does  our  conclusion  apply?  Crime  as  an  educational 
organon  is  condemned,  not  because  it  fails  to  develop 
intelligence,  but  because  it  develops  it  in  a  wrong 
direction.  We  cancel  Fagin's  certificate  not  because 
he  is  a  bad  teacher,  but  because  he  teaches  bad  things. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   MEANING    OF    OBSERVATION 

IT  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Bishop  Berkeley  wrote 
for  an  English-speaking  audience.  To  the  plain  man 
subjective  idealism  is  something  that  should  have  come 
from  Germany,  or  rather  that  should  have  stayed  there. 
To  the  ordinary  consciousness  there  is  the  mind  within, 
and  the  great  world  of  facts  outside.  The  mind  and 
the  world  are,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  opposed  to 
each  other,  and  what  God  has  separated  let  not  man 
make  one. 

Yet  the  two  must  be  brought  into  relation  to  each 
other  :  the  teacher's  work  is  regarded  as  the  shovelling 
in  of  as  many  of  those  outside  facts  as  the  mind  -can 
contain.  The  great  shovel  for  this  purpose  is  known 
as  Observation,  a  word  dear  to  the  hearts  of  ' '  Teachers, 
Inspectors,  School  Superintendents,  School  Boards,  Par- 
ents, and  Others  interested." 

The  lack  of  observation  is  coming  to  be  regarded  as 
the  great  evil  of  modern  education.  We  are  continu- 
ally being  told  that  we  do  not  observe  enough,  and 
certainly,  when  put  to  the  usual  tests,  we  do  not  make 
a  very  distinguished  appearance.  If  every  Englishman 
were  asked  to  state,  under  pain  of  immediate  death  in 
case  of  error,  the  exact  number  of  steps  in  the  stair 
leading  up  to  his  bedroom,  there  would  be  a  slaughter 

135 


136  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

throughout  the  world  unequalled  since  the  days  of 
Noah.  And  if  the  mortality  would  be  slightly  dimin- 
ished by  giving  the  unfortunate  victims  the  choice  of 
stating  which  arm  they  first  thrust  into  the  sleeve  when 
putting  on  coat  or  jacket,  it  would  not  be  because  of 
greater  observation,  but  from  the  fact  that,  there  being 
but  two  possibilities  in  this  case,  the  chances  of  life 
and  death  would  be  equal. 

A  whole  class  of  students  of  Psychology  has  been 
reduced  to  the  most  shamefaced  confusion,  when  sud- 
denly asked  to  write  down,  without  time  for  investi- 
gation, the  answer  to  the  question :  "  How  many 
buttons  have  you  on  your  waistcoat  ? "  This  state 
of  matters  is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  and  a  certain 
section  of  practical  educationists  give  us  many  oppor- 
tunities to  grieve  over  it.  When  a  class  in  school  has 
been  floored  by  some  such  simple  question  as  :  "  With 
which  foot  do  you  usually  begin  to  walk  ? "  or  ""At 
which  end  does  a  recumbent  cow  begin  to  rise  ?  "  those 
practical  educationists  turn  to  the  teacher,  and,  with 
a  deprecatory  smile,  ask  if  it  would  not  be  better  to 
pay  a  little  more  attention  to  the  "  observing  faculties  " 
of  the  pupils. 

Being  a  wise  man,  the  teacher  smiles  in  return,  and 
holds  his  peace;  but  this  does  not  prevent  him  from 
afterwards  explaining  to  the  pupil-teacher  who  saw  the 
experiment  and  heard  the  criticism,  that  it  is  no  great 
disadvantage  to  the  children  that  they  do  not  know 
which  end  of  a  cow  gets  up  first,  while  it  is  positively 
to  their  advantage  that  they  do  not  know  with  which 
foot  they  start  to  walk.  To  the  ordinary  child  or  man 


THE  MEANING   OF   OBSERVATION  137  ' 

it  is  of  no  importance  how  the  cow  distributes  the 
labour  of  getting  up,  while  the  introduction  of  con- 
scious knowledge  into  the  act  of  walking  really  inter- 
feres with  that  act. 

If  any  one  question  this,  let  him  start  to  reflect  upon 
what  he  is  doing  as  he  rapidly  runs  downstairs.  So 
long  as  he  does  not  think  about  the  matter,  all  goes 
well ;  but  as  soon  as  the  attention  is  directed  to  the ' 
motion,  everything  gets  into  confusion,  and  the  experi- 
menter is  lucky  if  he  escape  without  a  tumble.  Even 
the  pupil-teacher  should  know  that  the  upper  brain,  as 
soon  as  it  has  become  perfectly  familiar  with  the  regu- 
lation of  a  certain  act,  hands  it  over  to  the  lower  brain, 
where  it  is  attended  to  in  future,  being  allowed  access 
to  the  upper  region,  the  region  of  consciousness,  only 
under  very  exceptional  circumstances.  The  greater 
the  number  of  acts  that  have  thus  been  thrust  out  of 
consciousness  so  as  to  become  reflex  acts,  the  greater 
the  development  of  the  soul  in  question.  The  greater 
the  painter,  the  less  able  he  is  to  describe  the  mechani- 
cal methods  by  which  his  results  are  produced.  If  a 
man  has  to  consider  with  which  foot  he  shall  start  to 
walk,  his  attention  is  by  that  very  fact  taken  away 
from  other  and  more  important  work. 

Little  opposition  need  be  feared  to  what  has  been 
said  against  observing  how  we  perform  reflex  acts,  but 
with  regard  to  the  other  set  of  facts,  the  uprising-cow 
sort  of  fact,  there  exists  a  very  widespread  fallacy. 
Common  sense  and  school-management  books  here  form 
an  unwonted  alliance  in  favour  of  more  attention  to  the 
training  of  what  is  called  observation.  It  is  admitted 


138  THE   HEKBAUTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

that  the  number  of  steps,  the  number  of  buttons,  and 
the  end  of  the  «ow  are  not  in  themselves  of  very  much 
importance.  The  but  that  naturally  follows  this  con- 
cession may  introduce,  according  to  'the  bent  of  the 
speaker,  either  or  both  of  two  different  lines  of  argu- 
ment. It  may  be  maintained  that  while  the  mere  facts 
in  question  are  insignificant,  the  habit  of  observation 
'acquired  in  noting  them  is  valuable ;  or  it  may  be 
argued  that  though  the  facts  are  at  present  of  no  con- 
sequence, one  never  knows  at  what  moment  they  may 
become  of  vital  importance. 

Dealing  with  the  former,  the  training  theory,  first, 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  possible  to  train 
the  mind  to  note  unimportant  and  unconnected  facts. 
You  are  familiar  with  the  account  of  how  Robert 
Houdin  trained  himself  and  his  son  by  walking  rapidly 
past  some  shop  on  the  Boulevards,  and  then  comparing 
notes  as  to  the  number  of  objects  each  had  been  able  to 
fix  on  his  mind  in  the  momentary  glimpse  at  the  win- 
dow. It  is  said  that  they  got  the  length  of  accurately 
noting  as  many  as  five  hundred  different  objects.  I 
myself  have  trained  a  class  by  constant  practice  to  dis- 
cover more  from  a  five  seconds'  exposure  of  a  picture 
than  an  untrained  adult  could  accomplish  in  a  couple  of 
minutes. 

This  is  hardly  the  kind  of  training  that  the  observa- 
tionist  educationist  clamours  for.  He  wants  the  pupil 
to  observe  everything.  He  writes  books  like  that  tire- 
some "Eyes  and  No  Eyes."  He  tells  us  of  one-eyed 
dervishes  who  see  more  with  their  one  eye  than  most  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  do  with  two.  He  cites  men  like 


THE   MEANING    OF   OBSERVATION  139 

Zadig,  who  earns  the  distinction  of  imprisonment  and 
a  heavy  fine  for  telling  all  about  a  spaniel  and  a  horse 
that  he  has  never  seen.  In  those  days  he  points  to  the 
marvellous  deeds  of  Sherlock  Holmes.  After  reading 
one  of  this  gentleman's  wonderful  cases,  the  educational 
reformer  is  apt  to  remark  :  "  How  simple  it  all  is  when 
once  the  method  is  explained  ;  if  our  children  were 
taught  to  observe  as  they  should,  they  could  attain  to 
something  in  the  same  direction." 

Now  the  famous  detective  is  a  very  unfortunate  il- 
lustration for  the  "observationists."  His  observation 
is  not  theirs.  What  they  call  observation,  I  fear  he 
would  call  gaping.  A  " country  walk"  is  the  ideal 
occasion  for  the  reformer's  observation.  The  pupil  is 
supposed  to  go  along  with  all  his  senses  on  the  alert. 
He  is  to  observe  the  note  of  the  skylark,  the  scent  of 
the  violets,  the  form  of  the  clouds,  the  colour  of  the 
primroses,  the  smoothness  of  the  grass,  the  springiness  of 
the  turf.  He  is  to  amble  along  with  all  the  Five  Gate- 
ways of  knowledge  wide  open,  and  we  know  that  the 
mouth  is  one  of  them. 

This  diffused  Sandford-and-Merton  gaping  is  not 
observation  as  Holmes  understood  it.  No  doubt  your 
typical  detective  of  romance  is  always  described  as  be- 
ing specially  observant,  and  this  is  sometimes  illus- 
trated by  his  marvellous  powers  of  noticing  all  sorts  of 
irrelevant  things.  For  example,  we  have,  in  a  detec- 
tive story  of  the  Holmes  class,  an  amusing  description 
of  the  education  of  a  detective,  and  a  specimen  of  his 
powers  when  mature.  He  gives  an  inventory  of  what 
he  has  observed  in  a  certain  drawing-room  :  "  Carpet, 


140  THE  HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

Brussels,  whitish  ground  sprinkled  with  largish  roses. 
Wall  paper  same  shade  as  carpet,  diamond  pattern, 
in  dull  gold.  Facing  door,  water  colour ;  girl  cross- 
ing stream  on  stepping-stone,  making  signs  to  little 
chap  on  bank.  Over  door,  water  colour;  old  gentle- 
man, knee  breeches,  reading  book  in  a  wood.  Twelve 
chairs,  various — four  easy,  three  spider-legged,  in  gold. 
Little  round-topped  table  near  window,  microscope  on 
it,  and  a  bracket  full  o'  books ;  Tennyson's  poems, 
green  and  gold,  seven  vollums ;  Imitation  of  Christ, 
white  vellum,  gold  letters  ;  foreign  book  in  a  yellow 
cover,  don't  know  the  name  ;  '  Leaders  from  the  Times,' 
two  vollums,  name  of  Phillips.  Little  cabinet  in  the 
corner,  seven  drawers,  key  in  the  middle  drawer,  basket 
of  flowers  and  lady's  photo  on  top.  Chimley  ornaments 
Dresden  china,  stag  with  antlers  caught  in  a  tree,  left 
antler  broke."1 

Mr.  Prickett's  observations  might  have  been  of  value  in 
view  of  a  possible  public  auction,  but  they  do  not  seem 
to  help  him  much  in  his  actual  business.  He  would  do 
well  to  remember  his  own  pregnant  words  :  "  The  major 
part  of  people  ruins  their  memories  with  reading  novels 
and  songs  and  trash."  With  Holmes  all  this  is  differ- 
ent. The  irrelevant  catalogue  observation  is  replaced  by 
a  carefully  grouped  selection  of  facts  to  note.  He  only 
looks  for  certain  things.  Indeed,  he  is  careful  not  to  let 
mere  observation  bulk  too  largely  in  his  methods.  It 
is  only  one  of  three  essentials  to  success  in  his  profes- 
sion. To  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  educational  reformer 

1  A  Dangerous  Catspaw,  by  D.  C.  Murray  and  Henry  Murray 
(Longmans,  1890),  pp.  129-132. 


THE  MEANING  OP   OBSERVATION  141 

observation  includes  the  whole  three,  though  each  is 
really  independent. 

It  is  Holmes'  biographer,  Dr.  Watson,  who  speaks 
in  The  Sign  of  Four  :l  — 

"  '  But  you  spoke  just  now  of  observation  and  deduc- 
tion. Surely  the  one  to  some  extent  implies  the  other.' 

" '  Why,  hardly,'  he  answered,  leaning  back  luxuri- 
ously in  his  arm-chair,  and  sending  up  thick  blue 
wreaths  from  his  pipe.  '  For  example,  observation 
shows  me  that  you  have  been  to  the  Wigmore  Street 
post-office  this  morning,  but  deduction  lets  me  know 
that  when  there  you  despatched  a  telegram.' 

"'Right!'  said  I.  'Right  on  both  points.  But  I 
confess  that  I  don't  see  how  you  arrived  at  it.  It  was 
a  sudden  impulse  upon  my  part,  and  I  have  mentioned 
it  to  no  one.' 

" '  It  is  simplicity  itself,'  he  remarked,  chuckling  at 
my  surprise  — '  so  absurdly  simple  that  an  explanation 
is  superfluous  :  and  yet  it  may  serve  to  define  the  limits 
of  observation  and  of  deduction.  Observation  tells  me 
that  you  have  a  little  reddish  mould  adhering  to  your 
instep.  Just  opposite  the  Wigmore  Street  office  they 
have  taken  up  the  pavement  and  thrown  up  some  earth, 
which  lies  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  difficult  to  avoid 
treading  in  it  in  entering.  The  earth  is  of  this  peculiar 
reddish  tinge  which  is  found,  as  far  as  I  know,  nowhere 
else  in  the  neighbourhood.  So  much  is  observation. 
The  rest  is  deduction.' 

"  '  How,  then,  did  you  deduce  the  telegram  ? ' 

"  '  Why,  of  course  I  knew  that  you  had  not  written  a 
i  Page  11. 


142  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

letter,  since  I  sat  opposite  to  you  all  morning.  I  see 
also  in  your  open  desk  there  that  you  have  a  sheet  of 
stamps  and  a  thick  bundle  of  post-cards.  What  could 
you  go  into  the  post-office  for,  then,  but  to  send  a  wire  ? 
Eliminate  all  other  factors,  and  the  one  which  remains 
must  be  the  truth.' ' 

In  the  above  we  have  a  typical  example  of  the  class 
of  blunders  commonly  made  with  regard  to  observation. 
"Observation  shows  me  that  you  have  been  to  the 
Wigmore  Street  post-office,"  says  Holmes.  From  his 
own  implied  definition  of  the  term,  this  is  not  so. 
What  he  ought  to  have  said  is  what  he  says  a  little 
farther  on :  "  Observation  shows  me  that  you  have  a 
little  reddish  mould  adhering  to  your  instep."  He 
puts  the  deduction  in  the  wrong  place.  It  begins 
sooner  in  the  process  than  Holmes  admits.  He  did  not 
observe  Watson  going  into  the  post-office;  he  deduced 
this  action  from  the  red  mould  that  he  did  observe. 
This  mistake  as  to  the  precise  limits  of  observation  and 
deduction  is  continually  being  made,  and  is  the  cause  of 
much  of  the  confusion  that  marks  writing  on  this  sub- 
ject. Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  the  limits  of  the  two  processes  vary  with  the 
individual.  For  example,  Holmes  in  a  sense  may  be 
said  not  to  have  observed  the  red  mould,  but  to  have 
inferred  it.  What  he  did  observe  was  a  reddish  stuff. 
From  his  previous  experience  of  the  stuff  usually  to  be 
found  on  boots,  he  inferred  that  this  stuff  was  mould. 
In  the  ultimate  resort  all  that  any  one  can  observe  with 
the  eyes  are  certain  more  or  less  irregular  patches  of 
colour.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  all  the  length  with 


THE   MEANING   OF   OBSERVATION  143 

Binet,  who  maintains  that  all  our  interpretations  of  the 
ultimate  elements  of  sense  impression  are  rapid,  un- 
conscious, logical  inferences.  It  is  enough  to  recognize 
that  the  point  where  conscious  inference  begins  varies 
with  the  individual. 

The  third  essential  to  Holmes'  wonder-working 
method  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  concise 
criticism  he  passes  upon  a  French  colleague  :  "  He 
possesses  two  out  of  the  three  qualities  necessary  for 
the  ideal  detective.  He  has  the  power  of  observation 
and  that  of  deduction.  He  is  only  wanting  in  know- 
ledge, and  that  may  come  in  time."1 

Knowledge  comes  last  in  order,  but  it  is  first  in  im- 
portance. It  is  knowledge  that  directs  observation, 
and  gives  it  meaning.  The  story  is  told  among  the 
students  of  Professor  Bell  of  Edinburgh,  who,  as  every- 
body knows,  is  the  original  of  Sherlock  Holmes,  that 
he  one  day  astonished  his  students  by  declaring  that  a 
patient  who  had  just  come  to  the  infirmary  and  whom 
none  of  the  students,  nor  the  professor  himself,  had 
ever  seen  before,  was  a  non-commissioned  officer  lately 
pensioned  off,  after  serving  for  some  time  in  a  certain 
island  in  the  West  Indies.  The  age  of  the  man,  his 
bearing,  the  angle  at  which  he  wore  his  hat,  certain 
peculiarities  of  his  civilian  dress,  accounted  for  the  pro- 
fession and  rank  of  the  patient ;  the  West  Indies  and 
the  certain  island  were  indicated  by  the  marks  of  the 
bite  of  a  certain  insect  which  is  found  only  in  that 
island.  It  is  obvious  that  however  much  the  students 
had  observed  those  marks,  they  could  never  have 
1  The  Sign  of  Four,  p.  9. 


144  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

guessed  the  island  apart  from  this  very  special  bit  of 
knowledge. 

"  Precisely,"  says  the  observationist,  "  and  that  is 
why  people  should  be  trained  to  more  general  obser- 
vation. Had  the  professor  not  observed  that  fact,  the 
deduction  would  never  have  been  made."  We  are  thus 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  argument  in  favour  of 
getting  up  facts  for  the  use  that  may  some  time  be  made 
of  them.  Housewives  have  a  foolish  argument  in 
favour  of  accumulating  rubbish ;  it  runs  "  Keep  a  thing 
for  seven  years  and  you  will  find  a  use  for  it."  But  if 
the  observationist  appeals  to  Holmes  for  justification  in 
applying  this  principle  to  education,  he  will  find  him- 
self hoist  with  his  own  petar.  Holmes  makes  short 
work  of  this  system  of  accumulation.  He  is  not  a  very 
profound  psychologist,  and  we  shall  attack  his  position 
directly;  but  the  following  statement1  effectually  dis- 
poses of  the  omnium  gatherum  theory  of  observation  so 
far  as  he  is  concerned. 

'"You  see,'  he  explained,  'I  consider  that  a  man's 
brain  originally  is  like  a  little  empty  attic,  and  you 
have  to  stock  it  with  such  furniture  as  you  choose.  A 
fool  takes  in  all  the  lumber  of  every  sort  that  he  comes 
across,  so  that  the  knowledge  which  might  be  useful 
to  him  gets  crowded  out,  or  at  best  is  jumbled  up  with 
a  lot  of  other  things,  so  that  he  has  a  difficulty  in  lay- 
ing his  hands  upon  it.  Now  the  skilful  workman  is 
very  careful  indeed  as  to  what  he  takes  into  his  brain- 
attic.  He  will  have  nothing  but  the  tools  which  may 
help  him  in  doing  his  work ;  but  of  these  he  has  a  large 
1  A  Study  in  Scarlet,  p.  20. 


THE  MEANING   OP   OBSERVATION  145 

assortment,  arid  all  in  the  most  perfect  order.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  think  that  that  little  room  has  elastic  walls 
and  can  distend  to  any  extent.  Depend  upon  it,  there 
comes  a  time  when  for  every  addition  of  knowledge 
you  forget  something  that  you  knew  before.  It  is  of 
the  highest  importance,  therefore,  not  to  have  useless 
facts  elbowing  out  the  useful  ones.'  "  l 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  better  example  of  the 
practical  application  of  the  Lockian  principle  than  this 
eminently  materialistic  statement.  Whether  we  regard 
it  as  the  view  of  the  clever  detective  or  of  the  talented 
author,  it  is  equally  instructive  as  representing  the 
view  of  Psychology  held  by  intelligent  but  unphilo- 
sophic  Englishmen.  The  mind  is  a  mere  knowledge-box 
of  limited  capacity.  As  soon  as  it  is  filled  to  a  certain 
point,  it  begins  to  leak,  and  all  further  attempts  to 
acquire  knowledge  can  only  result  in  the  losing  of 
knowledge  already  acquired.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
knowledge  does  decay,  that  facts  do  slip  out  of  our 
reach,  but  it  is  not  true  that  the  mind  is  the  poorer  for 
that. 

Leaving  out  of  account  the  loss  of  knowledge  which 
results  from  the  physical  decay  of  the  system  when 
maturity  is  past,  it  may  be  maintained  without  an  un- 
due appearance  of  paradox  that  this  leakage  of  which 
Holmes  complains  is  a  positive  advantage.  It  implies 
a  losing  of  details,  details  which  are  a  hindrance, 
not  a  help.  Intellectual  progress  is  a  progress  towards 
abstraction.  A  young  mind  or  an  untrained  mind 

1  There  is  a  curious  parallelism  between  the  above  and  .certain  re- 
marks of  Mr.  Prickett  on  p.  129  of  A  Dangerous  Catspaw. 

L 


146  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

is  full  of  pictured  ideas,  what  are  usually  known  as 
images.  When  a  word  is  used,  a  picture  arises  in  the 
mind.  Somewhat  more  cultured  minds  generalize  those 
pictures  into  what  Romanes  calls  recepts.  It  is  only  in 
fairly  well-trained  minds  that  we  reach  what  may  be 
properly  termed  concepts.  Now  this  process  is  one  of 
decay.  The  ideas  that  perish  are  exactly  the  kind  that 
Holmes  laments,  and  they  must  die  if  the  concept  is  to 
be  free. 

Another  aspect  of  the  same  truth  is  to  be  found  in 
the  argument  of  the  New  Education  in  favour  of  the 
importance  of  forgotten  knowledge.  It  is  a  huge  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  the  man  who  has  forgotten  some- 
thing he  once  learned  is  in  exactly  the  same  position  as 
if  he  had  never  known  that  something.  However  it 
may  be  with  love,  it  is  better  to  have  learned  and  for- 
gotten then  never  to  have  learned  at  all.  True  learning 
is  really  judicious  forgetting.  The  great  scientist  is 
the  man  who  has  wisely  dropped  out  of  knowledge  all 
the  myriad  facts  he  had  to  examine  in  order  to  come  to 
his  valuable  conclusions.  The  master  of  style  is  all  the 
better  that  he  has  forgotten  the  authors  on  whose  style 
his  own  was  formed.  The  mind  is  an  organism,  and  be- 
tween it  and  its  contents  there  is  continual  reciprocal 
action  and  reaction.  To  Holmes  it  is  a  mere  idea  trap. 

We  are  not,  therefore,  surprised  to  find  Holmes  as 
notable  for  his  ignorance  as  he  is  for  his  knowledge. 
He  knew  nothing  about  the  solar  system,  and  had 
never  heard  of  Carlyle.1  His  biographer  has  drawn  up 

1  Though,  if  my  memory  does  not  deceive  me,  he  afterwards  quotes 
Goethe. 


THE   MEANING   OP   OBSERVATION  147 

a  tabular  statement  of  Sherlock  Holmes  —  his  limi- 
tations.1 In  this  statement  we  find  the  word  Nil 
placed  opposite  Literature,  Philosophy,  and  Astron- 
omy. Politics  is  feeble,  Botany  variable,  Anatomy 
accurate  but  unsystematic,  while  Chemistry  is  marked 
profound,  and  credit  is  given  for  almost  unlimited 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  crime.  A  good  practical 
acquaintance  with  British  Law  is  added,  and  boxing, 
swordsmanship,  and  violin-playing  are  thrown  in  as 
extras. 

What  does  all  this  amount  to  but  a  statement  that 
Holmes  had  acquired  an  exceptionally  well-developed 
apperception  mass  of  things  pertaining  to  the  detection 
of  crime?  But  such  a  mass,  regarded  as  a  mere  col- 
lection of  knowledge,  seems  inadequate  to  explain  the 
wonderful  things  that  Holmes  does.  If  it  did,  it  is 
objected,  brilliant  detectives  could  be  manufactured 
at  our  schools  and  colleges  as  easily  as  we  at  present 
manufacture  government  officials  ;  for  in  this  respect 
Holmes  is  merely  an  exaggerated  sample  of  the  pop- 
ular process  of  specialized  education.  Holmes  seems  to 
feel  this  himself,  and  tries  to  explain  his  success  as  the 
result  of  his  method. 

" '  In  solving  a  problem  of  this  sort,'  says  Holmes,2 
'  the  grand  thing  is  to  be  able  to  reason  backwards. 
That  is  a  very  useful  accomplishment,  and  a  very  easy 
one ;  but  people  do  not  practise  it  much.  In  the  every- 
day affairs  of  life  it  is  more  useful  to  reason  forwards, 
and  so  the  other  comes  to  be  neglected.  There  are 

1  A  Study  in  Scarlet,  p.  21. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  215. 


148  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

fifty  who   can   reason   synthetically  for   one  who  can 
reason  analytically.' 

"  '  I  confess,'  said  I,  '  that  I  do  not  quite  follow  you.' 
" '  I  hardly  expected  that  you  would.  Let  me  see  if  I 
can  make  it  clearer.  Most  people,  if  you  describe  a 
train  of  events  to  them,  will  tell  you  what  the  result 
would  be.  They  can  put  those  events  together  in  their 
minds,  and  argue  from  them  that  something  will  come 
to  pass.  There  are  few  people,  however,  who,  if  you 
told  them  a  result,  would  be  able  to  evolve  from  their 
own  inner  consciousness  what  the  steps  were  which  led 
up  to  that  result.  This  power  is  what  I  mean  when 
I  talk  of  reasoning  backwards,  or  analytically." 

From  our  point  of  view  this  passage  is  the  most  im- 
portant in  the  Holmes  Memoirs.  If  it  be  true,  our 
educational  system  is  at  fault.  If  the  power  of  syn- 
thetic reasoning  is  fifty  times  better  trained  than  that 
of  analytic  reasoning,  there  is  something  radically 
wrong.  But  can  it  be  fairly  charged  to  our  training 
that  we  are  weaker  in  analytical  than  in  synthetical 
reasoning?  Is  reasoning  backwards  really  "a  very 
easy "  thing  ?  Is  there  nothing  in  the  conditions  of 
the  two  cases  that  makes  reasoning  backwards  more 
difficult  than  reasoning  forwards  ?  He  is,  indeed,  a  dull 
novel-reader  who  cannot  ring  the  marriage  bells  for 
himself  without  finishing  the  final  chapter  of  the  third 
volume  of  an  old-fashioned  novel ;  but  even  Sherlock 
Holmes  would  find  it  difficult  to  accurately  reconstruct 
the  troublous  scenes  of  the  second  and  first  volumes 
from  the  given  result  that  they  "  lived  happy  ever 
after." 


THE  MEANING   OP   OBSERVATION  149 

To  pass  from  a  "  train  of  events  "  to  a  result  is  easier 
than  to  reverse  the  process,  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  more  data  are  given.  If  we  know  that  a  vessel 
came  into  Aberdeen  in  an  unseaworthy  state,  that  half 
of  her  crew  deserted  her  there,  that  she  was  laden  with 
cargo  till  she  dipped  below  the  Plimsoll  line,  that  her 
captain  in  a  drunken  fit  insisted  upon  at  once  setting 
out  to  sea,  and  that  immediately  thereafter  a  wild  gale 
had  arisen,  none  of  us  would  have  any  difficulty  in 
coming  to  a  fairly  accurate  conclusion  as  to  the  result 
of  the  affair.  On  the  other  hand,  the  general  reader,  say 
in  Glasgow,  who  is  told  in  his  Herald  that  the  Morning 
Star  has  been  lost,  with  all  hands,  would  have  little 
chance  of  filling  in  the  drunken  captain  and  the  rest. 

Even  when  a  chain  of  facts  is  made  up  of  links  joined 
to  one  another  in  the  most  rigid  logical  relations,  it  is 
easier  to  begin  with  the  elements  and  build  up.  No 
doubt  we  could  teach  the  first  book  of  Euclid  by  be- 
ginning with  the  forty-eighth  proposition  and  working 
backwards  ;  but  we  can  hardly  hope  that  teachers  will 
adopt  this  method  till  at  least  its  advantages  can  be 
made  more  evident  than  at  present. 

It  was  not  because  Holmes  could  reason  backwards 
that  he  beat  the  ordinary  Scotland  Yard  detectives. 
When  one  of  them,  Lestrade,  saw  the  letters  R-A-C-H-E 
traced  in  blood  upon  the  wall,  the  only  idea  that  rose 
above  the  threshold  of  his  consciousness  was  the  word 
Rachel,  and  he  at  once  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
woman  of  that  name  had  something  to  do  with  the 
crime,  and  proceeded  to  make  a  hypothesis  that  would 
fit  into  this  fact.  He  reasoned  backwards  as  easily  and 


150  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

as  accurately  as  Holmes  himself,  the  only  difference 
being  that  Holmes'  apperception  mass  contained  the 
German  word  .Rache,  which  means  revenge.  Holmes 
was  right,  Lestrade  was  wrong  ;  but  it  was  not  a  matter 
of  reasoning  backwards  or  forwards  ;  it  was  a  matter  of 
knowledge.  Like  Bain's  wild  beast,  Lestrade  sprang 
upon  Rachel,  because  Rache  did  not  present  itself. 

Holmes'  method,  indeed,  is  that  of  every  scientific 
man  in  face  of  an  unexplained  fact.  He  gathers  all 
the  available  information  bearing  upon  the  point  at 
issue,1  and  allows  all  his  apperception  masses  to  act 
upon  it.  As  soon  as  all  the  relevant  ideas  have  pre- 
sented themselves,  the  soul  proceeds  to  arrange  them 
in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  the  most  harmonious  com- 
bination. The  process  is,  therefore,  not  purely  analytic, 
as  Holmes  would  have  us  believe,  since  its  first  step  is 
the  construction  of  a  hypothesis  which  is  a  synthetic 
process.  To  make  a  hypothesis  is  really  to  discover  a 
system  of  ideas  in  which  all  the  given  ideas  will  find  a 
natural  place.  Holmes  does  not  really  analyze  the 
whole  of  the  material  submitted  to  him,  and  pass  by  a 
regular  series  of  deductions  from  the  poisoned  man  to 
the  poisoner.  He  gathers  all  the  materials  that  mere 
observation  can  give,  then  casts  about  in  his  soul  for  a 
system  of  ideas  that  is,  in  itself,  consistent  with  the 
nature  of  things  as  known  to  Holmes,  and  is  not  con- 
tradicted by  any  of  the  facts  of  the  case  in  question. 
The  analysis  begins  at  the  point  when  the  hypothetical 

1  The  store-room  in  which  the  facts  are  gathered  corresponds  to 
Gallon's  "Antechamber  of  Consciousness."  See  Human  Faculty, 
pp.  2(K5  ff.,  particularly  p.  206. 


THE   MEANING   OP   OBSERVATION  151 

system  has  been  constructed,  and  is  being  broken  up 
into  its  details  in  order  that  these  may  be  compared,  so 
as  to  show  up  any  inconsistency. 

What  gives  an  appearance  of  mystery  to  the  whole 
process,  is  the  suppression  of  the  guiding  hypothesis 
till  such  time  as  the  author  sees  fit  to  divulge  it.  The 
reader  is  led  on  from  point  to  point,  in  admiring  amaze- 
ment at  the  acumen  of  the  guide,  who,  all  the  time,  has 
the  enormous  advantage  of  this  enlightening  hypothesis. 
No  doubt  the  making  of  this  hypothesis  is  in  itself  very 
creditable  to  the  intelligent  detective ;  but  it  is  not  at 
all  wonderful  or  mysterious,  when  the  content  of  his 
soul  is  taken  into  account. 

Every  soul,  when  working  in  a  familiar  line,  habitu- 
ally jumps  over  many  steps  in  its  reasoning ;  while  a 
soul  unfamiliar  with  that  special  matter  has  painfully 
to  develop  and.  examine  each  step.  How  often  do  we 
find  the  mathematician  thrust  in  a  therefore  at  a  ridicu- 
lously early  stage  in  the  demonstration,  with  the  result 
that  the  novice  requires  a  couple  of  foolscap  pages  of 
explanation.  To  take  a  more  concrete  case  :  — 

"  When  Captain  Head  was  travelling  across  the 
Pampas  of  South  America,  his  guide  one  day  suddenly 
stopped  him,  and,  pointing  high  into  the  air,  cried  out, 
'A  lion!'  Surprised  at  such  an  exclamation,  accom- 
panied with  such  an  act,  he  turned  up  his  eyes,  and 
with  difficulty  perceived,  at  an  immeasurable  height,  a 
flight  of  condors  soaring  in  circles  in  a  particular  spot. 
Beneath  this  spot,  far  out  of  sight  of  himself  or  guide, 
lay  the  carcass  of  a  horse,  and  over  that  carcass  stood, 
as  the  guide  well  knew,  a  lion,  whom  the  condors  were 


152  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

eying  with  envy  from  their  airy  height.  The  signal 
of  the  birds  was  to  him  what  the  sight  of  the  lion 
would  have  been  to  the  traveller,  of  full  assurance  of 
its  existence." * 

Here  it  was  not  a  case  of  reasoning  backwards  or  for- 
wards. The  guide  was  familiar  with  the  phenomenon. 
Fact  and  explanation  are  so  closely  connected  that  they 
cannot  be  kept  separate.  Once  we  know  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  little  black  speck  in  the  sky,  all  our  wonder 
at  the  guide's  cleverness  vanishes.  Holmes,  you  will 
remember,  is  always  complaining  that  as  soon  as  he  ex- 
plains how  he  comes  to  his  conclusions,  the  wonder  of 
his  hearers  disappears. 

Any  one  can  follow  the  facts  once  they  are  placed  in 
their  true  relations.  The  point  of  interest  for  us  is  how 
Holmes  manages  to  find  out  those  relations. 

We  are  apt  to  imagine  from  the  narrative  that  the 
facts  are  known  to  all  alike,  to  Scotland  Yard  and  to 
the  somewhat  dull  Dr.  Watson,  as  well  as  to  the  brill- 
iant Holmes.  Under  this  assumption  lies  the  fallacy 
that  the  "facts"  are  a  fixed  quantity  independent  of 
the  minds  apperceiving  them.  But  the  mind,  in  acting 
upon  a  fact,  modifies  it.  There  may  be  a  world  of  brute 
facts,  a  residual  world  that  exists  apart  from  and 
independent  of  any  knowing  mind ;  but  with  such  a 
world  we  have  very  obviously  nothing  to  do.  The 
only  facts  we  can  deal  with  are  those  which  have 
been  acted  upon  by  our  own  minds.  Observation,  as 
popularly  understood,  professes  to  bring  us  into  con- 
nection with  this  world  of  brute  facts,  and  is  sup- 
1  Quoted  by  Max  Miiller,  Science  of  Thought,  p.  8. 


THE  MEANING   OF  OBSERVATION  153 

posed   to  have  nothing   to   do   with   individual   pecu- 
liarities. 

Now  here,  in  the  accompanying  diagram  (Fig.  1),  is 
a  brute  fact.  What  does  observation  tell  us  about  it  ? 
What  this  brute  fact  means  to  my  readers,  I  cannot 
pretend  to  say.  To  a  class  of  young  boys,  experiment 
has  taught  me,  it  means  a  boat.  To  me,  when  I  drew 
it,  it  was  a  square  in  a  certain  position.  Even  when 
the  brute  fact  is  given  that  it  is  a  square,  do  all  my 
readers  apperceive  it  in  the  same  way?  A  man  igno- 
rant of  perspective  will  simply  smile,  and  wonder  if  I 
expect  him  to  believe  my  word  against  the  evidence  of 


c\ 


FIG.  1.  FHJ.  2. 

his  own  eyes.  Those  who  know  a  little  perspective 
will  admit  that  it  may  be  a  square.  Those  who  know 
more  perspective  will  at  once  recognize  that  it  is  a 
square,  in  a  plane  parallel  to  the  ground  plane,  placed 
a  little  above  the  level  of  the  eye  ;  that  the  eye  lies 
between  the  two  lines  AC,  BD,  but  nearer  AC  than  BD 
and  that  AB  is  nearer  the  spectator's  eye  than  is  CD. 

Is  this  difference  in  estimating  the  brute  fact  a  re- 
sult of  observation  ?  How  long  would  a  man  who 
knew  no  perspective  require  to  observe  this  brute  fact 
in  order  to  extract  all  this  information  from  it  ?  The 
difference  lies  in  the  mind,  not  in  the  brute  fact. 


154  THE   HEBBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

Some  of  my  readers,  doubtless,  have  an  uneasy  feel- 
ing that  all  this  is  something  very  like  quibbling,  and 
may  even  feel  inclined  to  say  :  "  We  are  not  talking 
of  what  the  figure  represents,  but  of  what  it  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact";  and  mathematicians,  with  the  assur- 
ance of  their  science,  will  settle  the  matter  summarily 
by  proclaiming  that  the  figure  is  a  "trapezoid,  that  and 
nothing  else."  From  the  voice  of  the  mathematician 
there  is  no  appeal ;  I  cannot  expect  any  one  to  take  my 
word  against  his.  The  figure  is  not  then  a  square,  as 
I  had  supposed,  but  a  trapezoid. 

Let  us  try  another  brute  fact.  This  time  it  is  famil- 
iar to  one  section  of  my  readers  at  any  rate,  so  that  I 
have  some  confidence  in  venturing  upon  a  dispute  with 
Mathematics.  When  I  say  that  this  diagram  (Fig.  2) 
represents  a  certain  kind  of  mending,  known  as  a  "  cross- 
cut darn,"  I  am  sure  that  the  public  feeling  among  my 
readers  will  not  allow  Mathematics  to  bully  me  into 
saying  that  it  is  anything  else.  But  somehow  Mathe- 
matics herself  is  not  so  eager  this  time  to  interfere 
in  the  case,  and  'when  appealed  to  she  answers  with  a 
very  uncertain  sound.  She  says  it  may  be  a  square 
with  four  right-angled  triangles  ;  or  it  may  be  two 
large  right-angled  triangles  partly  coinciding  with 
each  other ;  or  it  may  be  two  rhomboids  also  partly 
coinciding ;  or  it  may  be  one  such  rhomboid  plus  two 
right-angled  triangles  ;  or  it  may  be  an  irregular  hexa- 
gon with  two  re-entrant  angles  and  an  inscribed  square. 
When  pressed  into  a  corner,  this  time  she  declines  to 
decide  which  of  those  possible  things  it  really  is  ;  it 
may  be  any  of  them,  and  we  have  to  appeal  from 


THE   MEANING   OF   OBSERVATION  155 

Euclid  to  the  sewing  mistress  to  discover  that  the  two 
rhomboids  give  the  true  state  of  reality. 

But  at  this  point  our  friend,  the  man  in  the  street, 
strikes  in  and  says  that  after  all  the  reality  of  the 
diagram  may  be  reduced  to  six  equal  black  lines  on 
a  white  surface  with  an  odd  line  in  the  middle.  But 
being  a  fair-minded  man,  this  objector  admits  that  the 
six  lines  must  be  arranged  in  a  particular  order  to  pro- 
duce this  particular  kind  of  brute  fact,  and  that  the 
interpretation  of  those  six  lines  must  be  left  for  the 
apperceiving  mind.  The  geometrician's  interpretation 
and  that  of  the  sewing  mistress  are  both  facts.  They 
are  entirely  different,  but  they  are  both  true. 

It  is  worth  while  noting  that  the  odd  line  in  the 
middle,  which  the  mathematician  ignored  and  the  man 
in  the  street  disparaged,  is  the  key  of  the  whole  posi- 
tion, the  cause  of  the  whole  construction.  It  is  the 
tear  in  the  cloth  that  the  sewing  mistress  wishes  to 
repair.  It  is  no  doubt  highly  creditable  to  her  that 
she  so  readily  sees  that  the  drawing  represents  a  tear 
and  two  rhomboids  of  darning  to  mend  it,  but  her 
knowledge  is  hardly  wonderful  or  mysterious. 

The  little  diamond  panes  that  disturb  us  in  church 
can  fall  at  the  word  of  command  into  groups  of  equi- 
lateral triangles,  rhombuses,  or  hexagons,  according  to 
what  we  look  for  and  expect  to  find.  If  I  figure  them 
as  triangles,  have  I  any  right  to  say  that  my  neighbour  in 
the  next  pew  is  wrong  in  regarding  them  as  hexagons  ? 

Mere  observation  tells  us  that  there  are  so  many 
straight  lines  cutting  each  other  at  certain  angles  at 
certain  places.  How  much  of  even  this  rudimentary 


156  THE   HEEBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

knowledge  is  contributed  by  the  mind  itself  is  a  ques- 
tion that  the  best-informed  psychologists  answer  with 
the  utmost  diffidence  ;  but  given  this  residuum  of  brute 
fact,  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  mind  does  the 
rest.  Says  Hamlet :  — 

"  Do  you  see  that  cloud  that's  almost  in  shape  like  a  camel  ? 
Polonius.     By  the  mass,  and  'tis  like  a  camel,  indeed. 
Hamlet.    Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 
Polonius.     It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 
Hamlet.     Or  like  a  whale? 
Polonius.     Very  like  a  whale?  " 

The  groundlings  laugh,  and  it  is  left  for  a  German 
philosopher  to  discover  that  there  may  have  been  more 
Psychology  than  sycophantic  agreement  in  the  scene. 

It  is  often  said  with  a  sneer  by  half-educated  people 
that  certain  pictures  are  so  good  that  common  folks 
cannot  see  the  good  points  about  them  till  the  artist, 
or  a  superior  critic,  comes  along  and  indicates  them. 
The  sneer  expresses  a  literal  truth.  A  trained  eye 
does  see  in  a  picture  things  that  are  quite  invisible  to 
the  lay  spectator.  It  need  not  be  that  the  critic  sees 
more  in  the  way  of  mere  lines  and  colours  ;  it  is  merely 
that  he  understands  what  to  look  for,  what  to  direct 
his  attention  to,  how  to  combine  what  his  senses  pre- 
sent to  him.1 

Every  time  that  a  hearer  in  church  is  charmed  with 

1  This  seems  a  better  explanation  than  that  supplied  by  Jacotot, 
Enseignement  Universel,  De  1'Improvisation,  p.  283.  Of  the  artist  he 
there  says :  "  II  remarquait  qu'il  avail  remarque :  voila  sa  supeYi- 
orite\"  This  corresponds  to  the  Hegelian  "bringing  to  self -con- 
sciousness," and  represents  at  least  a  part  of  the  truth. 


THE  MEANING  OF   OBSERVATION  157 

a  new  and  unexpected  rendering  of  a  familiar  text,  he 
is  having  a  lesson  in  the  activity  of  the  mind  in  the 
making  of  knowledge.  Browning  is  reported  to  have 
said  that  his  obscure  poem  "  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark 
Tower  came  "  meant  to  every  man  exactly  as  much  as 
he  could  take  out  of  it.  This  poem  has  nearly  as  many 
interpretations  as  readers. 

A  certain  clever  inspector  of  schools,  complaining 
of  the  exclusively  bookish  training  given  in  our  schools, 
made  the  remark  —  "Our  children  are  treated  like 
pointers  :  they  are  trained  to  bark  at  print."  The  edu- 
cation of  actual  experience  is  open  to  the  same  condem- 
nation. We  are  all  trained  to  bark  at  something ;  and, 
each  in  our  own  field,  we  can  do  wonderful  things  — 
not  because  our  senses  are  keener,  but  because  our 
knowledge  is  fuller  and  better  arranged  in  our  own 
special  directions. 

The  doctor  who  calls  on  a  patient  for  the  first  time 
sees  no  more  than  do  the  anxious  friends  who  have 
sent  for  him  ;  the  only  difference  is  that  the  brute  facts 
of  the  case  are  no  longer  brute  facts  to  him  ;  he  fits 
them  into  their  places  in  a  little  cosmos  that  he  carries 
about  with  him.  Thoughtless  people  are  apt  to  ex- 
press this  by  saying  that  his  powers  of  observation 
have  been  trained ;  but  the  obvious  limit  to  this  is  that 
the  resulting  power  is  strictly  confined  to  a  certain 
class  of  facts.  Outside  of  his  own  department  a  doctor 
is  no  more  observant  than  other  folks.  Indeed,  a  doc- 
tor who  gains  distinction  in  other  (riot  cognate)  fields 
than  Medicine,  is  apt  to  lose  his  patients  and  his 
practice. 


158  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

It  is  related  of  Coleridge  and  two  friends  that,  being 
anxious  to  leave  a  busy  inn  in  a  hurry,  they  tried  to 
harness  their  horse  for  themselves.  Everything  went 
well  with  the  three  philosophers  till  they  came  to  the 
horse's  collar.  This  fairly  brought  them  to  a  stand- 
still. It  seemed  to  be  made  on  the  most  unphilosophi- 
cal  principles,  and  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  could  not 
be  forced  over  the  animal's  head.  It  was  not  till  the 
press  of  business  had  so  far  slackened  as  to  allow  the 
maid-servant  to  make  her  appearance,  that  they  came 
to  some  understanding  of  the  teleology  of  horse  collars. 
She  simply  reversed  the  collar,  slipped  it  thus  over 
the  horse's  head,  and  then  re-reversed  it. 

It  would  be  silly  to  compare  the  maid-servant's  brain 
with  Coleridge's  :  the  whole  point  lies  in  the  fact  that 
her  apperception  mass  presented  the  problem  in  quite 
a  different  light  from  that  in  which  it  had  struck  him. 

So  constant  is  the  relation  between  a  given  appercep- 
tion mass,  and  the  resulting  reaction  upon  a  given  brute 
fact,  that  not  only  can  we  to  some  extent  predict  how  a 
given  mind  will  treat  a  given  fact,  but  from  the  re- 
action upon  a  given  fact  we  may  make  a  fair  guess  at  the 
apperception  mass  in  question.  Professor  H.  Steinthal, 
in  his  Einleitung  in  die  Psychologies,.  Sprachwissenschaft,1 
gives  the  following  story  :  — 

"  In  a  railway  carriage  compartment  sit  in  lively  con- 
versation half  a  dozen  persons  totally  unacquainted 
with  each  other.  It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  one  of 
the  company  must  get  out  at  the  next  station.  An- 
other remarks  that  he  particularly  likes  such  a  meeting 
i  Page  167. 


THE   MEANING    OF   OBSERVATION  159 

with  totally  unknown  folks,  and  that  he  never  either 
asks  who  or  what  his  travelling  companions  may  be,  or 
tells  on  such  an  occasion  who  or  what  he  himself  is. 
Thereupon  one  of  the  company  says  that  if  the  others 
will  not  say  what  they  are,  he  will  pledge  himself  to 
find  out,  if  only  every  one  will  answer  him  a  quite  irrel- 
evant question.  This  was  agreed  to.  Taking  five 
leaves  from  his  note-book,  he  wrote  on  each  a  question, 
and  handed  one  to  each  of  his  companions,  with  the 
request  to  write  the  answer  upon  it.  After  they  had 
given  him  back  the  sheets,  he  said,  as  soon  as  he  had 
read  an  answer,  and  without  reflection,  to  one,  '  You 
are  a  scientist ' ;  to  another,  '  You  are  a  soldier ' ;  to  the 
third,  '  You  are  a  philologist '  ;  to  the  fourth,  '  You  a 
political  writer';  to  the  fifth,  'You  a  farmer.'  All 
admitted  that  he  was  right.  Then  he  got  out  and  left 
the  five  behind.  Each  wanted  to  know  what  question 
•the  others  had  got,  and  behold  one  and  the  same  ques- 
tion had  been  proposed  to  all.  It  ran  — 

" '  What  being  itself  destroys  what  it  has  brought 
forth?' 

"  To  this  the  scientist  had  answered,  Vital  Force  ;  the 
soldier,  War  ;  the  philologist,  Kronos  ;  the  writer,  Revo- 
lution ;  the  farmer,  A  boar. 

"  That  is  the  tale,  of  which  I  say  that  if  it  is  not  true 
it  is  remarkably  well  made  up.  The  narrator  further 
puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  the  political  writer  : 
'  Just  there  comes  in  the  joke.  Each  answers  what 
first  occurs  to  him,  and  that  is  what  is  most  nearly 
related  to  his  calling.  Every  question  is  a  hole-boring 
experiment,  and  the  answer  is  a  hole  through  which 


160  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

one  may  peep  into  our  inner  nature.'  So  the  Hcee 
fabula  docet  is  expressed  in  the  form  of  practical  know- 
ledge of  human  nature.  So  we  are  all  wont  to  do.  It 
is  easy  for  any  one  to  know  the  clergyman,  the  soldier, 
the  savant,  the  man  of  business,  not  only  by  the  out- 
ward signs  of  clothing,  bearing,  etc.,  but  also  by  what 
they  say,  and  how  they  express  it.  We  guess  a  man's 
position  in  life  by  what  interests  him,  and  how  he 
shows  his  interest,  by  the  objects  of  which  he  speaks, 
by  his  way  of  regarding,  judging,  and  conceiving 
things,  that  is  to  say,  by  his  way  of  apperceiving." 

Perhaps  we  need  not  have  gone  so  far  afield  for  our 
illustration.  Not  long  ago,  in  the  Infant  Department 
of  one  of  our  Aberdeen  schools,  a  little  boy  was  sent 
by  the  mistress  to  post  a  letter.  So  long  did  he  remain 
away  that  anxiety  began  to  arise  as  to  the  cause  of  his 
delay.  With  that  free  and  easy  interchange  of  opinion 
that  unfortunately  does  not  survive  promotion  from 
the  infant  room,  the  little  ones  began  to  console  the 
mistress  by  suggesting  various  reasons  for  their  com- 
panion's absence.  Each  suggestion  was  very  obviously 
drawn  from  the  personal  experience  of  the  little  com- 
forter who  offered  it,  and  each  gave  some  indication  of 
the  mode  of  life  of  the  speaker.  But  the  typical  case 
was  that  of  the  little  fellow  who  suggested  that  the 
absentee  was  delayed  by  the  difficulty  of  "  licking  the 
stamp  off,  clean."  You  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  this  pessimist  was  the  son  of  a  wandering  tinker 
who  had  taken  up  a  very  temporary  abode  near  the 
school. 

All  teachers  are   aware  that   every  answer  a  pupil 


THE   MEANING  OF   OBSERVATION  161 

gives  is  an  indication  of  what  goes  on  in  his  mind. 
The  fundamental  mistake  we  are  apt  to  make  is  to 
neglect  this  aspect  of  the  matter,  and  to  act  as  if  each 
answer  had  only  an  absolute  value  in  itself,  in  relation  to 
an  absolute  outside  fact.  The  question  of  questions  for 
a  teacher  must  be  "  How  does  this  strike  my  pupil  ?  " 

In  his  recently  published  Studies  of  Childhood,  Pro- 
fessor Sully l  lays  stress  on  the  folly  of  parents  who  take 
young  children  to  see  landscapes  from  favourable  points 
of  view.  He  shows  that  the  child  cannot  see  the  view 
as  a  whole ;  he  has  not  that  sense  of  freedom  that  dis- 
tance and  wide  expanse  always  bring  to  an  adult. 
The  child  merely  picks  out  some  prominent  feature, 
usually  close  at  hand,  and  almost  invariably  of  no  inter- 
est to  grown-up  folks,  and  pins  all  his  attention  on  that. 
The  whole  progress  in  knowledge  is  from  a  vague  un- 
seen to  a  clearly  seen  whole.  The  educator  who  seeks 
to  cultivate  observation  by  supplying  materials  to  gape 
at,  does  not  know  the  rudiments  of  his  art.  True 
observation  is  the  offspring  of  interest  and  knowledge. 

We  observe  easily  what  we  are  interested  in  or  what 
we  already  know  something  about,  so  the  teacher  in 
seeking  to  train  observation  must  give  up  attending 
to  the  keenness  of  an  eagle's  sight  and  the  delicacy 
of  a  dog's  sense  of  smell,  and  turn  to  consider  interest 
and  knowledge. 

A  professor  who  is  a  passenger  on  a  sailing  vessel 

has  been  admiring  the  keenness  of  observation  of  the 

sailor  on  the  lookout.     But  when  he  and  the  sailor  are 

reading   the  most  recent  available  newspapers  in  the 

1  Op.  tit.,  p.  300. 


162  THE   HERBABTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

twilight,  the  surprising  phenomenon  occurs  that  the 
eagle-eyed  sailor  is  the  first  who  has  to  give  up  on 
account  of  the  failing  light.  A  few  questions  and  a 
little  thought  explain  the  whole  matter.  In  the  dusk 
the  sailor  could  still  more  than  hold  his  own  in  the 
way  of  distinguishing  objects  in  the  ship  or  even  in 
determining  the  number  of  dots  in  certain  spaced-out 
advertisements,  but  in  the  actual  reading  the  professor 
was  clearly  ahead.  The  sailor's  sense  impression  was 
keener,  but  the  professor,  so  far  as  reading  went,  was 
the  better  observer. 

Interest  and  knowledge  are  too  important  to  be 
treated  satisfactorily  at  the  end  of  a  chapter;  in  the 
meantime  it  is  enough  to  remark  that  they  mutually 
determine  and  react  upon  each  other.  In  view  of 
this,  the  teacher's  first  duty  is  to  ascertain  the  contents 
of  the  mind  of  his  pupils,  and  then  to  bring  within 
their  reach  materials  specially  prepared  for  those  minds 
to  react  upon.  Children  can  observe  only  what  their 
apperception  masses  are  prepared  to  act  upon;  to  all 
else  they  are  literally  blind,  deaf,  callous. 

To  cultivate  observation,  then,  is  not  to  train  the 
eye,  the  ear,  the  hand,  to  extreme  sensitiveness,  but 
rather  to  work  up  well-organized  knowledge  within  the 
mind  itself.  If  we  desire  minute  observation  in  a  defi- 
nite direction,  we  must  cultivate  special  knowledge  to 
correspond.  If  we  wish  to  encourage  general  observa- 
tion, we  can  only  succeed  by  cultivating  wide  interests. 

The  reciprocal  interaction  of  interest  and  knowledge 
in  relation  to  external  facts,  is  what  ought  truly  to  be 
called  observation. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  LOGICAL   CONCEPT   AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL 

ONE  need  not  be  greatly  ashamed  at  not  knowing 
Isaac  Habrecht.  He  is  not  exactly  what  might  be 
called  a  famous  man.  Indeed,  the  only  positive  in- 
formation that  I  can  give  about  him  at  this  moment  is 
that  he  lived  at  Strasburg  in  the  early  sixteen  hun- 
dreds ;  and  was  not  like  Charles  the  Second.  For 
Isaac  once  said  a  foolish  thing.  Professor  Laurie 
makes  him  responsible  for  the  following  :  "  One  would 
learn  to  know  all  the  animals  of  the  world  more  quickly 
by  visiting  Noah's  Ark  than  by  traversing  the  world, 
and  picking  up  knowledge  as  we  went."  1 

Without  professing  too  intimate  an  acquaintance 
with  honest  Isaac,  we  may  on  the  ground  of  this  asser- 
tion fairly  charge  him  with  intellectual  greed.  In 
learning  as  in  commerce,  there  are  those  who  go  wrong 
by  hasting  to  be  rich,  and  in  both  cases  the  results  are 
often  disastrous.  If  Isaac  merely  meant  that  it  is 
easier  to  arrive  at  the  names  of  animals  via  the  Ark, 
his  remark  might  be  readily  passed  ;  but  from  the  school 
to  which  he  belonged  we  know  that  he  aimed  at  more 
than  that,  and  by  reaching  at  too  much  he  would  cer- 
tainly have  lost  all$  had  he  been  favoured  with  a  free 
pass  to  the  Ark.  For  of  all  places  in  the  world  a  wild- 

1  Coinenius,  p.  32. 
163 


164  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

beast  show  is  the  last  to  which  a  reasonable  man  would 
go  to  acquire  a  true  knowledge  of  animals.  A  lion  in 
a  menagerie  labours  under  nearly  as  great  a  disadvan- 
tage as  does  a  fine  picture  in  a  picture  gallery. 

No  respectable  boy  who  has  made  his  first  acquaint- 
ance with  the  king  of  beasts  in  the  stirring  pictures 
of  his  Standard  II.  Reader,  will  recognize  him  in  the 
mangy  overgrown  dog  that  growls  over  its  shreds  of 
putrid  flesh  behind  the  bars  of  the  sordid  caravan  cage. 
The  boy  is  right.  Of  the  two,  the  paper  lion  is  truer 
to  life.  No  doubt  the  caged  animal  does  convey  some 
real  knowledge  of  details,  —  form,  size,  colour,  and  the 
like  ;  for  degrade  him  as  you  will,  he  is  a  lion  for  all 
that.  But  we  have  emancipated  ourselves  from  the 
dominion  of  mere  brute  fact.  What  we  see  behind 
the  bars  there  is  only  a  part,  and  by  no  means  the 
most  important  part,  of  what  holds  a  place  in  our 
minds  as  a  lion.  Had  Isaac  had  an  opportunity  of 
visiting  the  Ark,  he  would  have  had  to  bring  with  him 
a  great  deal  more  lion  than  he  found  there. 

This  Noah's  Ark  teaching  represents  a  noble  idol  of 
the  school.  The  pupil  is  taught  to  play  the  part  of  a 
little  Adam,  and  all  the  animals  are  brought  before  him 
to  see  what  he  will  call  them.  If  he  can  give  them 
the  names  that  the  master  is  accustomed  to,  all  is  well. 
Good  educational  work  is  supposed  to  have  been  done. 
A  child  who  has  seen  a  camel,  and  who  can  recognize 
a  camel  when  he  sees  one,  is  regarded  as  knowing  the 
camel.  In  a  certain  aspect  this  View  is  right.  It  is 
the  opposite  of  that  which  insists  with  wearisome  itera- 
tion of  having  "  things,  not  words."  Neither  things  nor 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT  AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      165 

names  must  be  raised  to  a  place  of  absolute  importance. 
Neither  by  itself  is  useful  to  man  as  a  rational  educa- 
ble  being.  Suppose  a  boy  to  know  all  the  animals  in 
the  Ark  by  head-mark  without  knowing  the  names  of 
any,  is  he  much  better  off  than  the  boy  who  knows  all 
the  names  of  the  animals,  but  cannot  distribute  his 
names  properly  ?  The  truth  is  that  name  and  thing  are 
of  precisely  equal  value  in  education  :  each  by  itself  is 
naught ;  each  owes  its  importance  to  the  other.  The 
lowest  step  in  knowledge  is  the  unifying  in  one  idea 
the  name  and  the  thing.  Till  this  has  been  done,  no 
progress  can  be  made.  In  the  Ark  there  must  be 
no  lack  of  old-fashioned  courtesy.  We  must  not  ad- 
dress ourselves  to  the  animals  without  being  properly 
introduced. 

Once  this  formality  has  been  gone  through,  and  we 
know  to  whom  we  are  speaking,  the  acquaintanceship 
may  be  cultivated  in  two  totally  different  ways.  When 
we  are  thrown  into  a  new  circle  of  acquaintances,  we 
study  them  after  two  distinct  fashions.  We  may  con- 
sider each  man  by  himself,  note  all  his  mental  and 
physical  qualities,  and  strive  to  understand  his  charac- 
ter. On  the  other  hand,  we  may  pay  little  attention  to 
the  man  himself,  but  may  carefully  look  up  some  book 
when  we  get  home  —  Debrett  if  he  is  a  really  fine  speci- 
men, Whitaker  if  he  is  only  respectable,  and  the  City 
Directory  in  other  cases. 

Now,  who  shall  say  that  a  public  dinner  or  ball  is 
the  best  place  to  arrive  at  a  speedy  knowledge  of  those 
human  beings  we  are  thus  studying?  No  one  can  fail 
to  note  that  men  and  women  in  such  surroundings  are 


166  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

not  their  natural  selves,  yet  Isaac  calmly  assumes  that 
the  animals  in  the  Ark  were  at  their  ease.  What  could 
be  more  unnatural  than  the  sight  that  "  Juveniles  under 
twelve  "  are  privileged  to  see  for  sixpence  ?  Wrenched 
from  their  true  environment,  and  thrust  into  another, 
full  of  incongruities,  none  of  the  animals  appears  at  its 
usual,  not  to  say  its  best.  The  elephant  alone,  and 
perhaps  the  camel,  retains  some  degree  of  naturalness, 
maybe  because  he  is  big  enough  to  supply  a  sort  of 
environment  for  himself. 

For  the  former  of  the  two  kinds  of  knowledge 
referred  to  above,  the  Ark  certainly  offers  distinct 
facilities.  We  can  examine  each  animal  in  great 
detail,  we  can  compare  one  animal  with  another,  we 
can  classify  them,  and,  crowning  glory,  we  can  be 
prepared  to  be  examined  upon  them.  So  far  as  the 
minute  study  of  each  individual  animal  goes,  Ark  edu- 
cation is  perfectly  sound ;  for  each  fact  in  Anatomy  or 
Physiology  is  not  an  isolated  fact,  but  a  fact  which  finds 
a  place  andean  explanation  in  the  organism  in  which  it 
is  found.  The  hard  leathery  pads  on  the  camel's  legs, 
for  example,  and  its  humps,  can  be  to  some  extent  at 
least  explained  by  discovering  their  relation  to  the 
other  parts  of  the  animal's  frame.  The  finger  at  the 
end  of  the  elephant's  trunk  readily  demonstrates  its 
own  place  and  usefulness  in  the  elephant's  organism. 

Can  the  same  be  said  of  the  animal  as  a  whole? 
Itself  an  organism,  and  therefore  a  harmony  of  parts 
and  forces,  it  can  explain  any  part  of  its  being  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  merely  living.  Any  question 
regarding  the  members  or  functions  of  the  elephant's 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT   AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      167 

body  is  readily  answered  by  a  good-natured  solvitur 
ambulando.  But  while  the  organism  can  explain  its 
parts,  can  it  explain  itself?  The  elephant  which  can 
combine  into  an  organic  system  all  the  forces  which 
its  life  implies,  is  itself  but  part  of  a  higher  organism 
which  the  elephant  cannot  explain,  but  which  must 
rather  explain  the  elephant.  To  know  the  elephant 
as  part  of  this  higher  organism,  we  must  see  it  acting 
as  a  member  of  that  organism.  We  must,  in  other 
words,  study  the  elephant  in  its  natural  state,  and 
amid  its  natural  surroundings. 

This,  then,  is  the  great  defect  of  Ark  education.  It 
tears  away  objects  from  their  natural  surroundings, 
and  thus  renders  them  meaningless ;  then  it  tries  to 
make  up  for  this  loss  of  meaning  by  studying  with 
great  elaboration  the  details  of  the  objects  thus  un- 
naturally isolated.  The  ever-ready  objection  is  here 
at  once  brought  forward :  it  is  said  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  include  such  a  wide  sweep  as  a  full  explana- 
tion of  anything  would  demand.  The  teacher  may 
naturally  hesitate  to  enter  on  his  requisition  sheet  to 
his  board,  under  the  head  Apparatus :  "  Two  elephants 
with  jungle,  complete."  But  while  the  absurdity  of 
this  demand  in  practical  education  is  cheerfully  ad- 
mitted, its  reasonableness  from  the  theoretical  stand- 
point may  be  sturdily  maintained.  If  the  elephant  is 
to  be  truly  understood,  the  jungle  with  all  its  acces- 
sories must  be  supplied.  The  only  other  way,  and  a 
much  better  one,  is  to  apply  the  lesson  of  the  story  of 
Mahomet  and  the  Mountain.  If  the  teacher  cannot 
supply  a  real  jungle  as  well  as  a  real  elephant,  then 


168  THE   HEUBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  pupils  must  seek  out  the  elephant  in  his  native 
wilds.  This  "traversing  the  world"  is  not  so  expedi- 
tious a  plan  as  visiting  the  Ark,  but  it  is  the  only  way 
in  which  true  knowledge  may  be  "  picked  up." 

To  be  sure,  a  child  may  fare  exceedingly  well  in  this 
world  without  visiting  either  the  Ark  or  the  jungle. 
But  the  comparative  insignificance  of  the  elephant  as 
an  object  of  knowledge  in  no  way  diminishes  the  impor- 
tance of  the  educational  principle  involved.  For  this 
Ark  education  is  by  no  means  limited  to  the  study  of 
the  beasts  that  went  in  by  their  twos  and  their  sevens. 
Museum  teaching  of  all  kinds  comes  under  the  same 
condemnation.  Most  of  us  have  laughed  all  the  fresh- 
ness out  of  the  story  x»f  the  man  who  carried  about  a 
brick  as  a  specimen  of  the  house  he  had  for  sale.  Yet 
the  same  old  joke,  from  that  serious  side  that  every 
joke  has,  is  being  played  every  day  upon  our  helpless 
pupils.  Half  of  the  contents  of  most  museums  are 
veritable  bricks  from  houses  that  none  of  the  visitors 
ever  has  seen  or  is  likely  to  see. 

The  present  outcry  for  school  museums  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  latter-day  tribute  to  old  Isaac's  theory  of 
Ark  education.  The  heaped-up  curiosities  in  the  spare 
room  of  a  school  may  be  supposed  to  save  the  pupil 
the  labour  of  wandering  about  to  pick  up  knowledge 
for  himself.  If  this  be  the  view  adopted,  it  ought 
to  be  a  matter  of  rejoicing  rather  than  regret  that 
distinguished  advertisers  are  beginning  to  find  the 
demands  of  teachers  too  costly  to  be  met.  It  is  to  be 
remembered  that  a  museum  is  a  place  for  instruction 
of  one  kind  only,  and  that  not  the  most  important.  Its 


LOGICAL  CONCEPT  AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL   169 

place  is  not  at  the  beginning  of  a  study,  but  at  the  end. 
Can  any  one  imagine  a  more  dreary  way  of  beginning 
the  study  of  Botany  than  to  pore  over  a  book  of  dried 
specimens  ?  To  the  boy  who  has  collected  plants,  who 
has  seen  them  in  their  natural  state,  the  book  may  be 
both  interesting  and  instructive.  But  to  introduce  a 
boy  to  Botany  in  this  way  is  as  irrational  as  to  com- 
mence a  student  of  Psychology  with  an  examination  of 
the  Mummy  Room  in  the  British  Museum.  The  study 
of  detail  which  a  museum  favours  can  only  be  profit- 
ably carried  on  when  the  place  in  nature  of  the  object 
studied  has  been  clearly  grasped. 

If  school  museums  and  schoolboy  collections  alone 
were  involved,  no  great  harm  would  be  done.  But 
Isaac's  Ark  teaching  is  by  no  means  confined  to  Zool- 
ogy. It  permeates  the  whole  school  system.  The 
teacher  is  forever  preparing  his  little  list  of  specific 
gravities,  or  genders,  or  constitutional  changes,  or  words 
sounding  the  same  but  spelled  differently.  These  are 
all  little  arks,  each  with  its  more  or  less  choice  selection 
of  animals  which  can  be  thus  more  quickly  known  than 
they  could  be  had  the  pupil  to  find  them  out  for  himself 
in  their  natural  place.  Yet,  after  all,  those  collections 
are  only  little  arks,  mere  local  branches  of  the  great 
Noah's  Ark  that  dominates  all  schools.  For  Isaac  has 
not  been  -  left  without  successors  who  have  marched 
with  the  times.  The  short  cut  to  knowledge  is  not  the 
menagerie  or  the  museum.  The  Ark  of  Arks  in  edu- 
cation is  the  dictionary.  There  they  lie,  those  queer 
verbal  beasts,  arranged,  like  their  prototypes  in  the  real 
Ark,  not  according  to  their  true  nature,  but  according 


170  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

to  an  arbitrary  system  that  happens  to  suit  the  conven- 
ience of  dictionary  makers.  There  they  lie,  the  haughty 
Hagiolatry  beside  the  humble  Hag,  the  awe-inspiring 
Abracadabra  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  artless  Abroad,  just 
as  in  the  genuine  Ark  the  lion  may  have  occupied  the 
next  berth  to  the  lamb. 

We  have  reason  to  know  that  Isaac  strongly  approved 
of  the  dictionary  system,  as  a  means  of  saving  time. 
The  plan  is  not  a  good  one.  I  have  special  reasons  for 
knowing  this.  A  boy  with  whom  I  am  particularly 
well  acquainted  tried  it.  In  the  youth  of  the  individ- 
ual, as  in  the  youth  of  the  race,  there  is  a  strong  liking 
for  heroic  methods.  Some  hunger  for  dragons  to  slay, 
others  would  be  content  with  Boers.  The  dictionary 
was  good  enough  for  John. 

With  that  keen  eye  for  short  cuts  that  characterizes 
every  respectable  schoolboy,  John  observed  that  he 
had  to  waste  a  great  deal  of  time  in  looking  up  the  same 
word  again  and  again  in  the  dictionary.  The  annoy- 
ance of  having  to  turn  up  a  word  only  to  recognize  it 
as  an  old  friend  the  moment  he  had  got  the  place  in 
the  dictionary,  was  so  great  and  so  frequently  repeated 
that  he  cast  about  in  his  mind  for  a  remedy.  Then  an 
unfortunate  remark  of  his  teacher  occurred  to  him.  It 
was  not  a  strikingly  original  remark,  but  John  was  not 
overcritical  at  that  stage.  It  was  something  to  the 
effect  that  the  quickest  way,  in  the  long  run,  was  to 
learn  each  thing  perfectly  when  one  was  about  it  at 
any  rate.  There  were  more  remarks  about  an  invading 
army  in  a  hostile  country,  and  fortresses  that  could  not 
be  left  untaken  in  the  rear  ;  but  John  instinctively  knew 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT    AND   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL      171 

that  this  was  not  of  any  consequence.  He  was  quite 
clear  on  one  point,  —  that  if  once  he  had  conquered  the 
dictionary,  he  would  be  saved  an  intolerable  amount  of 
turning  of  leaves  during  Latin  preparation.  So  he  faced 
his  gigantic  task,  and  tackled  his  dictionary.  It  was 
Smith's  ;  not,  of  course,  the  bigger  one,  but  the  one 
you  get  for  seven-and-six.  When  John  started,  he 
felt  almost  sorry  it  was  not  the  larger  one.  When  one 
is  doing  a  thing  thoroughly  at  any  rate,  it  seems  a  pity 
not  to  do  the  biggest  as  well  as  the  best.  The  regret 
did  not  last  long.  Nor  did  the  experiment.  John 
never  seemed  to  have  much  to  say  on  the  subject  dur- 
ing the  remainder  of  his  school-days.  Of  one  thing  he 
was  quite  convinced,  —  that  all  the  interest  of  his  experi- 
ment fell  to  the  lot  of  those  who  stood  by  and  looked 
on.  It  was  from  that  date  that  John  began  to  attach  a 
meaning  of  his  own  to  the  popular  paradox,  —  the  long- 
est way  round  is  the  shortest  way  home. 

What  John  ignorantly  but  gallantly  attempted,  is  set 
as  a  sober  task  to  our  pupils  at  school.  I  do  not  refer  to 
the  inhuman  proposal  of  Comenius  that  pupils  should 
be  made  to  learn  by  rote,  before  beginning  Latin,  a 
lexicon  of  one  hundred  folio  pages.  We  have  got 
beyond  absolute  barbarism.  It  is  admitted  now  that 
the  whole  Ark  is  too  heavy  a  burden ;  so  various  sub- 
sections are  marked  off  to  be  conquered  in  turn.  To 
learn  lists  of  "  meanings  "  is  only  a  new,  a  Napoleonic, 
way  of  mastering  the  dictionary.  But  words,  like  ani- 
mals, refuse  to  be  understood  when  examined  through 
bars  or  under  glass  cases.  From  the  dictionary  we 
may  learn  all  about  their  size,  their  form,  their  spell- 


172  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

ing  ;  we  may  wallow  in  derivation  ;  but  the  dictionary 
can  only  give  a  few  vague  equivalents  from  which  we 
may  draw  a  sort  of  average  meaning ;  or  it  may  give  a 
long  list  of  special  technical  meanings.  In  no  way  can 
we  attain  to  a  command  of  the  word,  save  by  using  it 
and  hearing  it  used  by  others. 

It  is  a  natural  criticism  that  interposes  here  with  the 
question  :  surely  the  master  cannot  be  blamed  for  see- 
ing that  his  pupil  understands  the  meaning  of  the  words 
he  uses.  It  may  be  asked  "  Can  a  pupil  be  supposed 
to  know,  in  the  sense  of  understand,  a  word  of  which 
he  cannot  give  the  meaning?"  The  answer  is  an  em- 
phatic Yes.  Most  people  in  the  world  use  freely  and 
intelligently  words  that  they  cannot  in  any  way  define. 
Take  a  Junior  class,  and  ask  the  meaning  of  No.  After 
the  first  pitying  smile  at  such  an  easy  question  has  passed 
away  from  the  faces  of  the  youngsters,  it  will  be  suc- 
ceeded by  a  sheepish  expression  which  gradually  gives 
place  to  a  distinct  uneasiness  when  it  is  found  that  the 
wretched  little  word  has  more  fight  in  it  than  they  had 
bargained  for.  I  shall  be  surprised  to  learn  that  a  single 
child  in  the  class  is  able  to  give  a  correct  answer.  Are 
we,  then,  to  assume  that  the  class  does  not  understand  the 
meaning  of  No  ?  The  question  cannot  be  taken  seriously. 

By  examining  the  "  meanings  "  offered  by  the  chil- 
dren in  their  vain  attempt  to  define  the  word,  we  may 
get  a  clearer  idea  of  how  a  word  may  be  understood 
while  defying  all  the  attempts  of  the  user  to  reduce 
it  to  a  clear  isolated  expression.  Some  of  the  mean- 
ings offered  during  an  actual  experiment  were  :  u  Not 
to  do  it " ;  "  None  of  it "  ;  "  Not  to  go  "  ;  "  You  won't 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT  AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      173 

give  me  leave  "  ;  "  Less  than  one."  All  these  expres- 
sions (except  perhaps  the  last,  the  work  of  a  clever 
arithmetician)  imply  a  previous  expression  which  they 
negative.  Every  child  obviously  knows  when  to  say 
iVo.  In  other  words,  the  pupils  can  use  the  word,  and 
can  understand  it  when  used.  What  they  cannot  do 
is  to  separate  it  from  its  context  and  place  it  in  a 
museum  of  words,  in  a  dictionary. 

This  definition  test,  practically  the  only  one  in  many 
schools,  does  very  serious  harm.  After  using  a  word 
easily  and  naturally,  a  child  may  pass  to  an  intelligent 
definition  of  it;  but  to  pass  from  the  definition  of  a 
word  to  the  intelligent  use  of  it  is  by  no  means  so  easy. 
No  doubt  one  gets  to  the  definition  meaning  of  a  word 
more  rapidly  through  the  dictionary  than  through  using 
the  word,  but  the  definition  meaning  is  practically  use- 
less to  the  child.  It  is  an  empty  generalization  useful 
only  to  those  who  have  already  at  their  disposal  a  large 
stock  of  experience  bearing  upon  the  word.  It  is  an 
unwise  haste  that  loads  a  child's  mind  with  meanings 
that  his  experience  cannot  make  real.  We  cannot 
hasten  a  child's  development  by  saving  him  some  of 
the  trouble  and  labour  of  arriving  at  generalizations. 
Each  child  must  work  for  his  own  generalizations,  just 
as  each  child  must  eat  for  his  own  nourishment.  Fes- 
tina  lente,  say  some  educationists,  should  be  printed  in 
letters  of  gold  over  the  door-posts  of  every  school-room. 
School-board  members  will  be  glad  to  learn  that  the 
ratepayers  need  never  be  called  upon  for  this  enormous 
outlay.  The  teacher  has  no  need  of  the  golden  sign- 
board. Its  advice  is  no  doubt  of  the  best.  But  nature 


174  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

takes  care  that  her  best  advice  is  attended  to  without 
the  formality  of  a  sign-board.  We  cannot  do  other 
than  hasten  slowly.  Rousseau  put  the  same  truth  in 
a  slightly  different  way  when  he  told  teachers  that  the 
most  important  lesson  for  the  teacher  of  young  children 
was  how  wisely  to  lose  time.  So  far  from  hurrying  his 
pupils  off  to  the  Ark,  Rousseau  would  deliberately  set 
them  off  on  their  travels  to  traverse  the  world,  if  by 
any  chance  they  might  pick  up  a  first-hand  acquaintance 
with  the  animals  in  their  natural  states.  He  who  would 
save  his  time,  must  lose  it. 

At  the  bottom  of  this  foolish  hasting  is  the  miscon- 
ception of  the  place  of  childhood  in  human  experience. 
Besides  being  a  stage  towards  a  fuller  development, 
childhood  is  an  end  in  itself ;  it  has  its  place  and  func- 
tion in  nature  apart  from  the  manhood  to  which  it  forms 
an  introduction.  "  What  is  a  boy  ?  "  is  the  question 
with  which  the  philosopher  in  the  story  staggered  the 
nurse  who  had  come  to  proclaim  the  joyful  news  :  "  It's 
a  boy,  sir."  She  was  unprepared  with  an  answer,  and 
too  many  teachers  share  her  embarrassment.  Under- 
lying all  our  notions  about  boys  lurks  the  misleading 
definition  :  "  A  little  man."  Now  this  is  precisely  what 
a  boy  is  not.  He  is  no  more  a  little  man  than  a  tadpole 
is  a  little  frog,  or  a  grub  a  little  butterfly.  It  is  only 
in  some  of  the  old  masters  that  we  find  a  boy  drawn  as 
if  he  were  merely  a  man  set  out  on  a  smaller  scale. 

The  evil  effects  of  this  little-man  theory  are  seen  in 
the  practical  view  of  education.  Your  practical  man 
looks  with  regretful  respect  at  the  little  chick  that  pro- 
ceeds straight  from  its  egg  to  its  first  lunch,  then  he 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT   AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      175 

turns  bitterly  to  compute  the  long  years  that  must  be 
wasted  before  his  own  offspring  can,  as  he  says,  "  come 
to  anything."  It  is  only  after  years  of  earnest  en- 
deavour that  he  gives  up  in  despair  the  attempt  to  put 
old  heads  on  young  shoulders. 

The  fallacy  of  saving  the  time  of  the  pupil  is 
matched  by  a  not  less  dangerous  fallacy  which  has  of 
late  been  coming  into  greater  prominence  since  the  first 
fallacy  has  been  more  or  less  completely  exploded.  This 
second  fallacy  lies  in  the  desire  to  save  the  children 
trouble.  If  the  poor  little  beggars  must  spend  such  an 
unconscionable  time  before  they  can  begin  the  real  busi- 
ness of  life,  let  them  at  least  have  as  much  pleasure  at 
school  as  possible.  To  this  every  well-conditioned 
teacher  will  utter  a  loud  Amen.  It  is  in.  the  foolish 
way  in  which  this  happiness  is  sought  that  the  danger 
lies.  Labour-saving  appliances  are  so  common,  and  so 
eagerly  sought  after  in  ordinary  life,  that  it  is  little  to 
be  wondered  at  that  the  same  craving  should  arise  in 
connection  with  school  work.  It  seems  eminently 
sensible,  not  to  say  humane,  to  save  children  as  much 
labour  as  possible.  But  it  is  necessary  for  parents  and 
teachers  alike  to  remember  that  children  are  not  sent  to 
school  to  be  saved  trouble,  but  to  be  taught  how  to  take 
trouble.  Taking  pains  is  one  of  the  main  things  to  be 
learnt  at  school. 

The  circumstances  of  the  school-room  are  not  those 
of  ordinary  life.  In  the  farm  and  the  workshop  the 
thing  to  be  done  is  the  important  matter,  —  the  corn  to 
be  produced  or  the  plough  to  be  made.  So  long  as  the 
corn  is  good  and  abundant,  and  the  plough  well-made 


176  THE  HERBAUTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

and  serviceable,  the  less  labour  spent  in  their  produc- 
tion the  better.  In  education  the  conditions  are  re- 
versed. The  process  is  everything,  the  material  result 
nothing.  A  blotted  and  blurred  copy-book  is  not,  in 
itself,  of  any  value.  Yet  it  may  be  a  record  of  very 
successful  teaching.  There  is  a  danger  of  this  distinc- 
tion being  overlooked  in  the  most  unexpected  quarter. 
Every  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  principles  upon 
which  the  kindergarten  system  is  founded  must  be 
surprised  at  the  pernicious  practice  —  fostered,  if  not 
created,  by  school-shows  —  of  regarding  the  work  of 
children  as  in  itself  valuable.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten 
that  psychological  principles  demand  that  the  hideous 
erection  of  matches  and  soft  peas  must  be  regarded  by 
the  little  architect  as  an  end  in  itself.  If  this  were  not 
so,  the  work  towards  that  end  would  be  in  vain.  To 
work  for  the  mere  sake  of  work  is  unintelligent,  mean- 
ingless. The  child  only  does  his  best  when  he  earnestly 
desires  to  attain  an  end,  even  though  that  end  be  but 
an  amorphous  mass  of  whitish  clay  that  a  complaisant 
teacher  is  willing  to  recognize  as  a  pear.  It  is  one 
thing,  however,  to  recognize  this  ceramic  fruit  as  an 
educational  end,  and  quite  another  to  admit  that  it  has 
any  value  in  itself.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  kinder- 
garten paper  work  and  drawings  are  in  themselves  pretty 
enough,  in  their  childish  way,  to  deserve  attention  on 
their  own  merits.  But  with  regard  to  such  objects  two 
things  must  be  observed.  First,  that  the  beauty  of  the 
result  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  value  of  the  work 
which  produces  it.  Secondly  and  chiefly,  that  a  con- 
sideration of  the  results  in  themselves  gives  rise  to  a 


LOGICAL  CONCEPT  AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      177 

strong  temptation  to  neglect  the  most  profitable  ways 
of  attaining  results,  and  to  adopt  easy  methods  of  pro- 
ducing striking  but  uneducative  results. 

This  has  been  the  case  in  dictionary  work.  The  aim 
has  been  to  get  up  as  many  words  as  possible.  The 
dictionary  is  obviously  the  most  convenient  place  to 
find  words.  Lists,  vocabularies,  thesauruses,  and  sylvas 
have  been  prepared  and  gobbled.  Time  and  trouble 
are  both  saved,  and  it  is  only  those  who  have  looked 
carefully  into  the  matter  who  have  been  convinced  that 
the  results  of  the  Noah's  Ark  method  are  rotten  at  the 
core. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  dictionary  has  a  place 
in  education,  —  a  place  in  which  it  can  do  admirable 
work.  If  Noah's  Ark  were  at  this  moment  available 
for  school  purposes,  he  would  be,  indeed,  a  foolish 
teacher  who  did  not  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity; 
but  he  would  not  take  his  pupils  there  in  order  merely 
to  save  time  and  trouble.  We  must  work  up  to  the  Ark, 
not  down  from  it.  We  must  go  to  the  dictionary  to 
find  the  meaning  of  words  we  have  actually  met;  we 
must  not  go  to  it  as  to  an  armoury  of  words  where  we 
may  choose  what  is  best  suited  to  our  purpose. 

Most  people  do  not  recognize  Hans  Sachs  as  a  poet 
of  the  first  rank.  But  if  any  are  in  doubt  about  the 
matter,  they  will  no  longer  hesitate  after  seeing  the 
picture  at  Nuremberg,  in  which  he  is  represented  as 
marking  off  with  his  fingers  the  feet  of  the  verses. 
This  is  not  the  way  true  poetry  is  made.  Fingering  is 
as  fatal  in  poetry  as  in  the  infant  room.  Your  genuine 
Noah's  Ark  poet  goes  a  step  higher.  In  his  case  the 


178  THE  HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

numbers,  indeed,  come;  it  is  the  rhymes  that  trouble 
him.  There  is  a  question  that  must  have  arisen  at 
some  time  or  other  in  every  thinking  mind  —  who  buys 
the  rhyming  dictionaries?  We  hear  of  such  books, 
and  we  see  them  advertised.  Has  any  of  my  readers 
ever  seen  one  of  them  in  actual  use?  Can  the  Poet's 
Corner  in  local  newspapers,  the  Young  Ladies'  Album 
of  verses,  the  literature  of  St.  Valentine's  day  and 
Christmas  time,  and  the  needs  of  the  desperate  adver- 
tiser account  for  the  consumpt?  Or  must  we  include 
a  certain  number  of  copies  as  belonging  to  the  regular 
army  of  Parnassus,  the  genuine  poets?  The  biogra- 
phers of  those  men  are  strangely  silent  on  this  point;  but 
in  the  absence  pf  positive  evidence  to  the  contrary,  we 
may  safely  follow  our  natural  impression,  and  repudiate 
any  such  aid  in  the  making  of  In  Memoriam,  or  even 
The  Lady  of  the  Lake.  The  rhymes,  like  the  numbers, 
must  "  come,"  if  there  is  to  be  genuine  poetry. 

The  rhyming  dictionary  is  an  excellent  illustration 
for  our  purpose,  since  it  can  only  be  used  in  the  way 
we  object  to.  No  one  consults  it  save  to  get  words  to 
use,  and  when  found,  the  words  are  not  the  servants  of 
the  word-hunter,  but  his  masters.  You  cannot  dig 
poetry  out  of  a  dictionary.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
makes  .merry  over  the  algebraic  lines :  — 

-------  youth. 

-------  morning. 

-------  truth. 

-    -    -    -  warning. 

Yet  the  bald  rhymes  and  the  threadbare  thoughts 
represented  by  the  dashes,  indicate  as  a  rule  better 


LOGICAL  CONCEPT  AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      179 

sense  than  your  schoolboy  can  produce  when  let  loose 
upon  a  dictionary.  The  legitimate  and  the  illegitimate 
use  of  the  dictionary  may  be  very  clearly  illustrated  by 
the  English-Latin  and  the  Latin-English  sections  of 
school  lexicons.  The  former  goes  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown,  it  is  true,  but  it  does  not  show  the  way. 
The  boy  knows  all  the  words  in  a  given  Latin  sentence 
except  the  word  genus.  He  looks  up  the  word  and 
finds  a  crowd  of  meanings,  among  which  he  sees  that 
kind  is  the  one  that  fits  into  his  sentence.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  is  driven  to  look  up  the  word  for  kind  in 
an  English  sentence  dealing  with  a  kind  father,  etc.,  he 
gets  a  variety  of  unknown  words  all  equally  meaning- 
less, and  the  chances  are  strongly  in  favour  of  his  pass- 
ing over  the  clumsy  benignus  in  preference  for  the 
simple  genus  pater.  He  is  a  fortunate  teacher  who  has 
never  in  his  manuscript  reading  come  across  this  pleas- 
ant old  gentleman. 

We  may  not  go  quite  the  length  of  Professor  Ramsay 
of  Glasgow,  who  used  to  invite  a  bonfire  of  English- 
Latin  dictionaries  after  the  pattern  of  the  magic-books 
of  the  Ephesians;  but  all  wise  teachers  will  make  a  rule 
that  no  boy  should  ever  be  led  into  the  temptation  of 
using  a  word  he  has  not  had  occasion  to  see  in  actual  use. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  dictionary  meaning  of  a 
word  is  only  one  out  of  many  meanings.  The  word 
man,  in  its  dictionary  sense,  means  a  rational  animal. 
When  the  young  scout  who  has  been  left  to  keep 
guard  while  his  fellows  do  a  deed  of  daring,  calls 
out,  "There's  the  man,"  does  he  mean  "There's  the 
rational  animal "  ?  Does  he  not  rather  mean  "  There's 


180  THE  HERBAKTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  animal  that  can  hurt "  ?  Yet  you  will  search  the  best 
dictionaries  in  vain  for  any  hint  of  this  meaning  of  man. 
A  reasonably  stout  dictionary  will  give  a  great  list 
of  the  different  meanings  of  man,  but  the  number  of 
meanings  given  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  number 
of  meanings  not  given.  The  word  varies  in  meaning 
with  almost  every  sentence  we  use.  This  truth  may 
be  expressed  by  saying  that  the  unit  of  meaning  is  not 
the  word,  but  the  sentence.  Those  fond  of  reasoning 
by  metaphor  will  be  pleased  with  the  statement  that 
the  sentence  is  not  a  mechanical  mixture  of  a  certain 
number  of  independent  words,  but  is  rather  a  chemical 
compound  in  which  the  elements  (in  this  case  words) 
acquire  an  entirely  new  character,  through  their  rela- 
tion to  the  whole.  Substituting  a  plain  statement  for 
the  metaphor,  we  may  say  that  the  sentence  is  the 
organism  in  which  the  individual  words  find  their  true 
meaning  because  they  find  their  true  place.  In  the 
dictionary  the  word  is  wrenched  away  from  this  com- 
bining and  explaining  whole,  and  accordingly  becomes 
to  a  large  extent  meaningless.  Even  when  we  happen 
to  discover  the  meaning  of  a  word  from  the  dictionary, 
we  find  that  we  are  really  supplying,  more  or  less  un- 
consciously, a  context.  To  treat  a  word  apart  from  any 
context  is  to  reduce  it  to  nothing. 

"  As  when  we  dwell  upon  a  word  we  know, 
Repeating  till  the  word  we  know  so  well 
Becomes  a  wonder,  and  we  know  not  why." 

The  poet  does  not  know  why,  and  does  not  want  to 
know.     To  him  the  luxury  of   ignorance  is  possible; 


LOGICAL  CONCEPT   AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      181 

to  the  teacher  it  is  denied.  There  is,  indeed,  little 
mystery  about  the  matter  after  all.  By  constantly 
thinking  about  one  word,  we  tend  to  make  it  an  object 
of  our  undivided  attention.  It  is  separated  from  its 
context,  it  loses  its  relations,  it  becomes  a  thing  in 
itself,  and  as  such  disappears  from  our  intelligence 
altogether.  Determination  is  negation  ;  absolute  de- 
termination is  absolute  negation. 

Obviously  there  must  be  in  this  rational  world  of 
ours  a  place  and  function  for  the  dictionary.  To  deny 
this  were  to  fly  in  the  face  of  common  sense  itself.  Did 
not  Johnson  write  a  dictionary  ?  Nor  is  it  so  difficult, 
after  all,  to  mark  off  the  sphere  of  such  books.  The 
word  as  found  in  the  dictionary  represents  one  aspect 
of  the  truth  ;  as  found  in  actual  use,  another.  The 
concept  that  the  word  represents  may  be  regarded 
from  two  totally  different  points  of  view.  We  have 
the  logical  and  the  psychological  concept.  The  word 
crab,  as  I  use  it  in  ordinary  conversation,  represents 
a  psychological  concept ;  as  found  in  the  dictionary 
under  the  letter  C,  it  stands  for  a  logical  concept. 

Are  there,  then,  two  different  concepts  corresponding 
to  the  word  crab  ?  Certainly  not ;  there  are  not  two 
different  concepts,  but  a  million,  a  score  of  millions, 
as  many  concepts,  indeed,  as  there  are  conceiving  minds. 
What,  then,  becomes  of  the  dictionary  in  which  only 
one  or  two  meanings  are  given,  or,  in  aggravated  cases, 
perhaps  a  score  ?  The  reply  is  that  while  there  are 
myriads  of  psychological  concepts  of  crab,  there  is  only 
one  logical  concept.  Psychologically  considered,  the 
word  crab  represents  a  concept  peculiar  to  the  person 


182  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

using  it.  This  concept  must  be  more  or  less  like  the 
concepts  of  crab  formed  in  other  minds,  and  is  probably 
very  like  the  concepts  to  be  found  in  the  minds  of 
those  with  whom  the  person  in  question  comes  most  in 
contact.  On  the  other  hand,  the  concepts  may  vary 
enormously,  if  we  take  the  cases  of  minds  whose  apper- 
ception masses  have  little  in  common.  A  Worcester- 
shire peasant,  a  Yarmouth  fisherman,  a  London  police- 
man, a  West-end  gourmet,  a  member  of  the  Fishery 
Board,  an  evolutionist  philosopher,  and  a  primary  school 
boy  have  all  concepts  of  crab  ;  but  could  all  those  con- 
cepts be  actualized,  the  results  would  be  startlingly  un- 
like. The  very  crabs  would  not  acknowledge  each  other. 
How,  then,  are  we  to  know  what  a  crab  is,  how  decide 
which  of  those  queer  concepts  is  legitimately  entitled 
to  the  name  it  claims  ?  Is  there  a  standard  crab  ? 

There  is  a  general  impression  that  there  is  a  standard, 
but  where  to  find  this  standard  is  a  question  that 
annoys  even  philosophers.  This  is  no  end-of-the-cen- 
tury,  up-to-date  problem.  It  has  worried  philosophers 
as  far  back  as  Plato  at  least.  His  answer,  while  in 
many  respects  beyond  reproach,  lacks  that  element  of 
practical  applicability  that  modern  solutions  must  have. 
He  may  be  right  when  he  says  that  the  perfect  pattern 
of  the  crab  is  laid  up  in  heaven  ;  1  but  pending  fuller 
investigations  there,  we  find  it  easier  to  fall  back  upon 
the  dictionary.  The  pattern  we  there  find  may  not  be 
perfect  ;  but  it  is  usually  clear,  definite,  and  open  to 
inspection. 

1  Cf.  Repub.,  X.  597.  Plato's  illustration  is  a  bed,  but  this  does 
not  affect  the  argument. 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT   AND   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL      183 

You  remember  how  Cuvier  treated  the  puzzled  dic- 
tionary makers  when  they  brought  for  his  criticism 
their  meaning  of  crab,  —  "A  red  fish  that  walks  back- 
wards." Like  the  courteous  gentleman  he  was,  he 
told  them  that  theirs  was  an  excellent  definition,  only 
the  crab  "  was  not  red,  was  not  a  fish,  and  did  not  walk 
backwards." 

Why  was  the  laugh  on  Cuvier's  side  ?  What  was 
the  standard  by  which  he  so  ruthlessly  demolished  the 
suggested  definition  ?  No  one  seems  to  question  his 
right  to  speak  with  crushing  authority  on  such  a  sub- 
ject, yet,  it  may  be  asked,  had  the  dictionary  men  noth- 
ing to  say  for  themselves  ?  Suppose  Cuvier  had  given 
his  brachi/urous,  decapod,  podophtJialmatous  Crustacean, 
and  the  dictionary  men  had  adhered  to  their  red  fish 
that  walks  backwards,  who  is  to  decide  between  them  ? 
Were  a  world-wide  poll  to  be  taken  on  the  sub- 
ject, which  of  the  two  definitions  would  enlist  more 
sympathy  ? 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  all  such  definitions  are, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  arbitrary.  There  is  no  special 
reason  why  an  insect  should  have  just  six  legs,  as  the 
definition  insists  upon  its  having ;  yet  if  I  can  bring 
forward  a  ringed  animal  with  a  body  divided  into  three 
distinct  parts,  with  antennae,  wings,  tracheae,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  down  to  the  part  that  demands  three  pairs 
of  legs  springing  from  the  thorax,  and  at  this  point 
fail  to  satisfy  the  requirements,  my  otherwise  satisfac- 
tory animal  will  be  firmly  refused  a  place  among  the 
insects.  The  taxonomist  can  never  go  wrong,  for  the 
patent  reason  that  he  is  by  hypothesis  always  right. 


184  THE  HERB ART!  AN   PSYCHOLOGY 

If  he  decrees  that  all  insects  have  six  legs,  and  an 
insect  comes  along  with  eight  legs,  he  very  properly 
rules  it  out  of  court  with  the  unanswerable  argument : 
"All  insects  have  only  six  legs.  This  pretender  has 
eight  legs.  Therefore  this  pretender  is  not  an  insect." 

If  we  ask  what  authority  the  definer  has  for  his 
major  premise,  he  need  only  reply  that  this  is  the  hy- 
pothesis on  which  he  works,  and  no  more  can  be  said. 
Cuvier's  friends  might  have  adopted  the  same  plan  and 
adhered  to  their  red  fish  that  walks  backwards,  and  if 
they  could  produce  any  animal  that  fulfilled  the  terms 
of  their  definition,  no  objection  could  be  taken  to  it. 
But  when  it  is  applied  to  an  animal  that  can  be  brought 
into  evidence,  the  definition  falls  to  the  ground  on 
being  contradicted  by  facts.  Yet  even  here  the  dic- 
tionary makers  may  attempt  a  last  defence.  Something 
is  wrong,  they  are  prepared  to  admit ;  but  which  is  in 
fault,  the  crab  or  the  definition  ?  In  actual  practice  it 
is  the  animal  that  is  always  put  upon  its  defence,  the 
definition  taking  the  place  of  judge.  But  the  defini- 
tion, in  its  turn,  is  supposed  to  have  owed  its  birth  to 
the  comparison  of  a  great  series  of  crabs  and  similar 
crustaceans.  Before  the  definition  was  made,  every 
crab  examined  had  a  voice  in  the  determination  ;  once 
the  definition  has  been  made,  each  new  crab  must  ful- 
fil the  conditions  or  forfeit  its  name.  But  while  the 
original  definition-forming  crabs  influenced  the  deci- 
sion, it  was  only  passively  ;  the  definition  was  actually 
made  by  the  thinking  mind.  God  made  the  crab  of  the 
sea-shore  ;  man  made  the  crab  of  the  dictionary. 

Generally  speaking,  the  crabs  of   the   sea-shore  are 


LOGICAL  CONCEPT   AND   THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL      185 

good-natured  enough  to  agree  very  closely  with  the 
dictionary  crabs  (though  there  is  far  more  individu- 
ality within  the  carapace  of  a  crab  than  any  one  who 
has  not  dissected  a  few  would  imagine) ;  but  there  are 
many  other  words  in  the  dictionary  that  cannot  be  put 
to  the  test  of  external  comparison,  and  which  are  there- 
fore regarded  as  absolutely  fixed,  while  there  is  the 
greatest  possible  elasticity  in  their  meaning  as  actually 
applied.  Words,  as  found  in  actual  use,  may  b3  divided 
into  two  great  psychological  classes,  as  transitive  and 
substantive.  The  latter  we  can  pause  upon  and  con- 
sider ;  the  former  are  always  upon  the  wing.  The  dis- 
tinction does  not  correspond  to  the  parts  of  speech,  and 
has  little  to  do  with  grammar.1  Every  one  knows  that 
in  a  sentence  there  are  natural  pausing  places,  not  for 
the  voice  merely,  but  for  the  thought.  The  subtle 
power  of  emphasis  gives  force  to  this  distinction,  and 
indicates  possibilities  of  meaning  that  no  dictionary  can 
ever  hope  to  convey.  The  words  of  the  dictionary  are 
indeed  symbols  of  thought,  but  of  thought  reduced  to 
its  least  common  denominator,  so  as  to  be  more  easily 
compared  with  other  thoughts. 

The  dictionary  meaning  may  be  compared  to  the 
skeleton  of  the  full  meaning  :  something  fixed  and 
definite,  to  which  each  person  who  uses  it  adds  his  own 
special  flesh  and  blood.  At  the  end  of  each  dictionary 

1  Being  a  purely  psychological  distinction,  this  aspect  of  the  mean- 
ing of  words  cannot  appear  in  a  dictionary.  A  given  word  may  in  one 
sentence  represent  the  transitive  part  of  thought,  in  another  the  sub- 
stantive. Cf.  some  extremely  interesting  observations  on  the  subject 
in  W.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I,  243  ff. 


186  THE    HEEBAKTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

definition  may  be  added  the  words  "  At  least."  A  man 
is  a  rational  animal,  at  least.  An  island  is  at  least  a 
piece  of  land  wholly  surrounded  by  water.  The  diction- 
ary maker  hopes,  by  thus  limiting  his  meanings,  to 
establish  uniformity.  But  such  an  absolute  agreement 
as  the  dictionary  hopes  to  establish  is  impossible.  All 
men  agree  that  man  is  a  rational  animal,  but  immedi- 
ately arises  the  question  what  is  rational,  and  what  is 
animal.  These  words  convey  a  different  meaning  to 
every  one  who  uses  them.  The  very  words,  therefore, 
that  seek  to  bring  A's  idea  of  a  man  into  strict  conform- 
ity with  B's  are  in  themselves  instruments  to  differ- 
entiate the  two  meanings. 

Science  has  been  defined  as  nothing  but  a  well-made 
language.  May  we  not,  without  putting  an  undue 
strain  upon  the  words,  say  that  education  consists  in 
the  making  of  dictionaries  ?  For  each  of  us  makes  his 
own  little  dictionary,  which  agrees  more  or  less  with 
those  of  others.  Pupils  in  the  same  school  and  belong- 
ing to  the  same  class  of  society  naturally  have  dictiona- 
ries that  correspond  pretty  closely  to  each  other.  The 
farther  people  are  removed  from  each  other  in  the 
circumstances  of  their  life,  the  greater  the  difference 
between  their  internal  dictionaries.  To  such  an  extent 
does  this  go  that  people  speaking  the  same  language, 
and  using  the  same  words  and  constructions,  may  be 
at  a  loss  to  understand  each  other.  Mark  Twain  gives 
an  excellent  example  of  this  in  the  interview  between 
a  rough  miner  and  a  clergyman  whom  the  miner  wishes 
to  conduct  the  funeral  service  of  a  fellow-miner. 
"  Are  you  the  duck  that  runs  the  gospel  mill  next 


LOGICAL   CONCEPT    AND   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL      187 

door  ?  "  begins  the  miner.  This  is  clearly  English  — 
the  words  are  all  Saxon,  and  the  construction  is  per- 
fectly straightforward.  Yet  the  clergyman  can  make 
no  sense  out  of  it.  When  the  clergyman  replies,  it  is 
the  miner's  turn  to  shake  his  head.  The  religious  dic- 
tionary is  as  hard  for  the  miner  as  the  mining  one  is 
for  the  minister.  Slang  and  dialect  are  only  exagger- 
ated forms  of  this  universal  system  of  private  dic- 
tionaries. Every  household  has  its  own  list  of  special 
meanings. 

In  the  case  of  households  and  communities  it  can  be 
demonstrated  that  words  are  used  in  special  senses. 
In  the  case  of  the  individual  there  can  be  no  proof 
either  way  by  direct  demonstration,  but  the  wise  teacher 
will  not  be  hard  to  convince,  though  he  may  be  slow  to 
apply  his  conviction.  The  standard  dictionary,  then, 
must  be  treated  as  the  terminus  ad  quern,  not  as  the 
starting-point  in  education.  The  pupil  must  first  learn 
to  use  his  own  private  internal  dictionary,  and  then 
learn  to  compare  and  correct  it  with  the  standard  dic- 
tionary. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  ORGANON 

THE  well-known  headmaster  of  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant schools  in  London,  speaking  of  the  training  of 
teachers  one  day,  made  the  startling  remark  :  "  All  that 
a  teacher  requires  is  a  knowledge  of  his  subject,  and  a 
sense  of  humour." 

Every  epigram  has  enough  truth  in  it  to  justify  its 
apparent  impertinence.  The  truth  here  lies  in  the 
second  requirement.  We  are  not  so  easily  satisfied  as 
this  headmaster;  we  want  more  than  a  knowledge  of 
the  subject  and  a  sense  of  humour.  But  we  cannot 
rest  satisfied  till  those  two  conditions  are  fulfilled. 
The  epigram  owes  its  point  to  its  insistence  upon  a 
very  unusual  requirement.  For  of  all  men  in  the  world 
a  schoolmaster  is  the  last  to  whom  popular  opinion  will 
concede  any  degree  of  genuine  humour.  It  takes  the 
sublime  charity  of  Wordsworth  to  describe  an  old 
schoolmaster  as 

"  The  gray-haired  man  of  glee." 1 
Even  Goldsmith,  the  genial,  cannot  help  rhyming  : 

"  Full  oft  they  laughed  with  counterfeited  glee 
At  all  his  jokes,  for  many  a  joke  had  he," 

1  Poems  of  Sentiment  and  Reflection :  "  The  Fountain." 
188 


A    NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   OEGANON  189 

and  an  appreciative  world  hails  the  picture  as  true  to 
life.  The  philomath  of  Sweet  Auburn  stands  con- 
demned at  the  bar  of  public  opinion,  and  it  is  only 
schoolmasters  who  care  to  ask  why  the  glee  was  coun- 
terfeited. Were  the  jokes  poor  in  themselves,  or  were 
they  too  old  to  command  genuine  glee  ?  Probably 
both  ;  for  "  many  a  "  is  strangely  suggestive  of  a  fairly 
large,  but  distinctly  definite,  number,  while  the  "  had 
he,"  implying  possession,  hints  at  a  cistern  rather  than 
a  fountain. 

The  question  of  quality  is  readily  settled  by  a  refer- 
ence to  Lamb,  who  has  given  an  authoritative  decision, 
telling  us  in  cold  blood  :  "  The  jests  of  a  schoolmaster 
are  coarse  or  thin.  They  do  not  tell  out  of  school."1 

To  the  charge  of  age  we  may  find  it  convenient  to 
plead  guilty.  Most  of  us  have  our  "  Grouse  in  the 
Gun-Room."  But  Lamb's  criticism  demands  different 
treatment.  To  begin  with,  Lamb,  while  an  unimpeach- 
able authority  on  joking,  is  a  distinctly  biassed  judge. 
Looking  all  through  the  range  of  literature,  I  do  not 
think  I  can  find  a  man  who  has  less  sympathy  with  the 
pedagogic  spirit. 

Why  should  a  schoolmaster's  jokes  be  coarser  or 
thinner  than  those  of  other  men?  As  we  are  plead- 
ing our  cause  only  to  ourselves,  we  may  as  well  be 
honest  and  admit  that  our  jokes  are  not  commonly 
of  the  best,  and  do  sometimes,  under  special  provoca- 
tion, become  a  little  coarse,  from  an  artistic  —  not  a 
moral  —  point  of  view.  The  cause  of  all  this  lies  on 
the  surface.  We  have  an  audience  ready  made,  who 
1  The  Old  Schoolmaster  and  the  New. 


190  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

must  listen,  and  who  generally  feel  it  their  duty  to 
laugh.  It  is,  indeed,  more  than  their  duty  ;  it  is  their 
interest  and  pleasure.  It  is  better  to  laugh  at  a  bad 
joke  than  to  cry  over  a  good  multiplication  table.  So 
long  as  the  master  is  making  jokes,  he  is  not  doing  any- 
thing else,  and  there  are  so  many  disagreeable  things 
he  might  be  doing.  It  is  well  to  counterfeit  glee. 

Thus  do  a  schoolmaster's  jokes  become  thin.  Any- 
thing will  do,  the  glee  comes  all  the.  same.  Why  they 
should  become  coarse  opens  up  other  and  more  dis- 
agreeable aspects  of  the  question.  Just  as  the  glee 
is  always  present,  so  is  honest  criticism  always  absent. 
When  the  master  opens  up  his  mind,  and  tells  John 
what  he  thinks  of  him,  John  finds  it  convenient  to 
reserve  his  opinion  for  open-air  use.  This  style  of 
pedagogic  wit  is  obsolescent,  if  not  obsolete.  If  any 
schoolmaster  recognizes  his  face  in  the  mirror  we  have 
here  held  up  to  ill-nature,  let  him  take  a  thought 
and  mend  his  jokes.  The  thin  ones  are  better  than 
these. 

All  this  forms,  doubtless,  an  explanation  to  Elia  why 
schoolmasters'  jokes  do  not  tell  out  of  school.  But 
there  is  more  than  this  in  it.  Answer,  all  ye  who  have 
suffered  under  the  hoary  joke  repeated  to  the  nth  time 
by  wealthy  uncle  or  prospective  father-in-law,  has  this 
thing  never  happened  to  you?  Have  you  never,  in 
desperate  straits  to  entertain  an  unresponsive  guest,  or 
under  sore  pressure  of  rivalry  at  another  man's  table, 
fallen  back  upon  one  of  those  venerable  jokes,  and 
produced  it  with  all  the  studied  abandon  of  a  body- 
snatcher,  only  to  be  bewildered  and  charmed  to  find 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  OKGANON     191 

it  go  off  brilliantly?  Obviously,  family  jokes  do  tell 
out  of  their  original  circle. 

The  real  explanation  of  the  truth  Lamb  has  hit  upon 
is  very  simple.  Schoolmasters'  jokes  do  not  tell  out 
of  school  because  they  are  school  jokes.  Jokes  only 
tell  where  they  meet  with  suitable  apperception  masses. 
Punch  has  a  picture  of  two  young  gentlemen,  and  the 
young  lady  for  whose  affections  they  are  rivals.  "  Do 
you  like  Botticelli  ?  "  she  asks  A,  who  innocently  re- 
plies, "N-no,  I  think  I  prefer  Chianti."  Thereupon, 
rival  B  whispers  with  malicious  triumph  into  A's  ear : 
"  Now  you've  done  it.  Botticelli  isn't  a  wine,  you 
idiot,  if s  a  cheese."  One  can  picture  stratum  after 
stratum  of  human  society  where  this  joke  would  not 
tell,  though  all  critics  of  jokes  (who  are  not  too  ad- 
vanced to  laugh  at  anything  in  Punch)  will  admit  that 
it  is  neither  coarse  nor  thin.  With  equal  justice  Elia 
might  have  said  here,  "  Artists'  jokes  do  not  tell  out  of 
the  studio." 

This  is  a  gentle  chapter  and  makes  for  peace.  Accord- 
ingly, there  is  no  attempt  made  to  define  a  joke.  It  is 
surely  vague  enough  to  avoid  controversy  to  say  that 
all  jokes  imply  a  taking  of  the  whole  for  the  part  or 
the  part  for  the  whole,  the  joker  knowing  all  the  while 
the  true  relation  of  whole  to  part.  To  give  point  to  the 
description  (the  very  word  definition  is  rejected  as  strife- 
producing),  we  might  almost  write  the  words  Ax.  9 
after  each  joke,  as  we  used  to  do  in  our  problems  in 
Euclid,  where  Axiom  9  reads  "  the  whole  is  greater  than 
its  part."  For  on  this  law,  and  its  breaches,  hang  all 
the  jokes  in  school  and  out. 


192  THE    HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

The  whole  to  which  all  the  parts  of  our  experience 
must  be  referred  for  their  true  explanation  is  the  self- 
consciousness  of  the  individual.  The  permanent  con- 
tent of  John's  soul,  we  have  seen,  is  made  up  of  a  great 
series  of  ideas  which  are  grouped  into  masses  which 
intersect  and  cross  and  oppose  each  other  in  a  some- 
what bewildering  way.  But  those  masses  do  not  react 
upon  each  other  in  any  haphazard  fashion.  As  ideas 
form  alliances  among  themselves  resulting  in  larger  or 
smaller  apperception  masses,  so  do  those  masses  com- 
bine to  form  systems.  It  follows  that  in  a  well-organ- 
ized soul  all  the  ideas  fall  into  definite  relations  of 
subordination  and  superiority,  so  as  to  form  a  regular 
hierarchy  of  ideas,  masses,  and  systems. 

A  man's  ideas  naturally  fall  into  systems,  each  gath- 
ering around  some  common  centre,  in  relation  to  which 
each  idea  falls  into  its  appropriate  place.  Such  centres 
are  a  man's  home,  his  club,  his  church,  his  business,  his 
political  party.  Each  such  system  is  to  a  certain  extent 
an  independent  organism,  in  which  all  the  component 
parts  fall  into  natural  and  reasonable  relations  with 
each  other.  At  any  moment  in  our  conscious  life  we 
must  regard  all  our  ideas  as  forming  a  rational  system ; 
but  certain  systems  become  in  a  sense  permanent  in 
certain  connections,  from  the  frequency  with  which 
they  occur,  and  from  the  vividness  resulting  from  cer- 
tain external  stimuli.  The  moment  a  man  enters  his 
office,  all  his  surroundings  react  upon  his  ideas  in  the 
same  way  as  they  have  done  for  the  past  score  of  years, 
with  the  result  that  all  his  ideas  fall  into  a  definite 
relation  to  each  other,  so  as  to  make  up  what  we  may 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  ORGANON     193 

call  his  office  system.  At  home  quite  a  new  set  of 
ideas  are  called  into  prominence,  and  in  church  still 
another,  the  permanent  relation  of  the  ideas  to  each 
other  being  determined,  as  before,  by  the  reaction  of 
the  external  environment.  Certain  ideas  belong  to  only 
one  system,  and  can  therefore  cause  no  confusion. 
The  idea  of  a  chasuble  has  no  standing  outside  of  the 
church  system,  nor  the  idea  of  Cydippe  outside  of  the 
biological  system.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great 
majority  of  ideas  belong  to  several  of  the  systems ; 
indeed,  if  this  were  not  so,  our  identity  would  be  lost 
among  our  many  systems.  I  know  that  the  /  of  my 
church  system  is  the  same  as  the  Zof  my  home  system, 
because  I  find  a  certain  number  of  ideas  common  to 
both. 

Certain  systems  may  have  remarkably  little  in  com- 
mon. The  system  that  centres  round  an  entomologist's 
work-table  has  almost  nothing  in  common  with  the 
system  gathered  round  his  political  creed.  Sometimes 
there  is  so  little  in  common  between  two  systems  that 
we  give  ourselves  up  to  banal  reflections,  and  ask, 
"  Can  I,  sunburnt  and  tweed-kriickerbockered,  lying 
on  my  back  on  the  grass,  be  the  same  I  that,  pale-faced 
and  cap-and-gowned,  lately  went  with  more  or  less 
regularity  to  eight-o'clock  lecture  ? "  Yet  there  must 
be  enough  in  common  to  make  up  the  ultimate  system 
which  goes  to  form  the  inseparable  environment  of  the 
ego.  In  the  last  resort  the  ego  must  be  present  in  all 
systems,  just  as  the  president  of  a  society  is  ex  officio  a 
member  of  all  committees. 

But  the  ego  is  not  an  isolated  idea  ;  it  is  the  meeting- 


194  THE  HERBAUTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

point  of  all  the  apperception  masses.  In  a  certain 
sense  it  may  be  said  to  have  no  mass  of  its  own,  since 
it  is  the  common  property  of  all  the  masses.  But  the 
mere  fact  of  this  presence  in  all  the  masses  and  systems 
gives  it  a  character  sui  generis ;  besides,  the  ego  is  so 
closely  connected  with  certain  of  the  more  permanent 
ideas  in  the  various  systems,  that  it  can  hardly  free 
itself  from  them,  but  drags  them  into  all  systems. 
There  thus  comes  to  be  practically  an  ego  mass,1  which 
is  common  to  all  systems,  and  which,  according  to  its 
influence,  determines  what  is  known  as  the  character 
of  the  soul  in  question. 

In  a  certain  sense,  John  is  as  many  boys  as  he  has 
systems.  Or,  if  you  prefer  it,  he  has  as  many  systems 
as  he  is  boys.2  The  most  superficial  observer  knows 
that  John  is  a  different  boy  in  school  and  in  the  play- 
ground, at  home  and  at  church.  Yet  he  is  a  fairly 
consistent  boy  in  each  system.  The  human  soul  is  so 
constituted  that  it  cannot  take  in  ideas  huddled  to- 
gether in  any  way.  Its  healthy  existence  depends 
upon  its  arranging  them  into  a  reasonable  whole,  in 
which  they  maintain  fixed  relations  to  each  other. 
Since  the  ideas  presented  in  school  usually  maintain  a 
fairly  well-established  order  among  themselves,  while 
such  of  those  ideas  as  are  common  to  school  and  play- 
ground naturally  hold  a  different  rank  in  each  case,  it 

1  Cf.  Maudsley,  Body  and  Will,  p.  80 :  "  The  ego  is  not  a  constant, 
but  a  variable."     And  Paulhan,  L'Activite  Afentale,  p.  211 :  "Lemoi 
est  une  co-ordination." 

2  "  L'hoinme  se  compose,  pour  ainsi  dire,  de  plusieurs  moi,  qui  ont 
un  fonds  commun  et  se  confondent  jusqu'a  un  certain  point,  mais  non 
pas  completement."  —  PAULHAN,  L'Activite  Mentale,  p.  200. 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  OKGANON     195 

is  to  be  expected  that  the  soul  should  have  a  certain 
school  place  for  a  given  idea,  and  quite  a  different 
place  for  it  in  the  playground  system.  In  school,  for 
example,  apperception  masses  are  formed  dealing  with 
grammatical  points  that  never  enter  into  the  system 
that  holds  in  the  playground.  In  the  ordinary  element- 
ary school  the  school  system  is  very  sharply  marked 
off  from  the  home  system,  each  having  actually  a  lan- 
guage of  its  own.  John  at  school  is  clean  and  tidy, 
speaks  respectfully  to  his  teachers  and  quietly  to  his 
neighbours,  and  at  least  endeavours  to  keep  the  peace 
among  his  nouns  and  verbs.  At  home  he  talks  loudly 
and  roughly,  and  lets  his  parts  of  speech  fight  it  out 
among  themselves.  A  discord  that  would  put  him  to 
the  blush  in  his  class  is  not  so  much  as  noticed  in  the 
privacy  of  the  home  circle.  Indeed,  the  accuracy  of  the 
school  is  as  much  a  solecism  at  home  as  the  familiar 
speech  of  the  fireside  is  at  school.  If  the  master  would 
hold  up  his  hands  at  the  expression  "  it's  me,"  the 
father  would  be  no  less  disgusted  with  the  priggish 
school  form  "it  is  I." 

The  difference  between  the  school  system  and  the 
playground  system  cannot  be  better  illustrated  than  by 
the  not  unfrequent  occasions  on  which  John  is  invited 
to  show  up  the  contents  of  his  pockets.  With  flushed 
face  and  downcast  eyes  he  produces  object  after  object 
of  which  in  the  playground  he  is  justly  proud,  but 
which,  under  the  cold  glare  of  the  master's  eye,  seem 
to  develop  qualities  for  which  even  John  feels  called 
upon  to  blush.  The  horsehair  that  in  the  playground 
is  warranted  to  split  the  stoutest  cane  the  master's 


196  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

money  can  buy,  under  that  master's  frown  becomes  a 
contemptible  trifle  to  be  explained  and  apologized  for. 

No  sooner  is  the  playground  reached,  after  this  de- 
plorable interview,  than  all  is  changed  ;  a  new  system 
becomes  dominant.  Persons  as  well  as  things  take 
new  rank.  The  dux  boy  in  school  often  plays  a  very 
subordinate  part  outside.  The  master  himself  falls  to 
a  pitiable  level  in  the  new  system,  being  only  proxime 
accessit  to  the  gamekeeper,  a  bad  second  to  the  drum- 
mer in  the  volunteer  band,  and  not  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  same  breath  with  the  lion-tamer  at  the  penny 
show. 

At  home  John  enters  still  another  world,  where 
things  have  to  be  all  rearranged.  The  John  of  the 
home  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  the  standard  John. 
He  is  more  natural  there ;  much  of  the  pretence  that 
he  puts  on  for  outside  use  is  here  dropped  as  un- 
necessary and  unworkable.  To  be  sure,  there  are 
certain  airs  (increasing  directly  as  the  number  of  his 
sisters,  and  inversely  as  the  number  of  his  brothers) 
special  to  home,  by  which  John  seeks  to  make  up  for 
the  loss  of  the  grander  make-believe  of  the  outside 
world ;  but  these  are  insignificant  by  comparison. 

At  church,  at  Sunday-school,  in  the  country  during 
vacation,  John  enters  a  new  world,  where  new  ideas 
find  a  place,  and  old  ideas  find  a  new  place  and  a  new 
meaning.  For  each  world  has  a  tone  of  its  own,  and 
the  same  idea  varies  with  the  world  in  which  it  finds 
itself.  In  school  the  idea  of  pigeon  has  to  hobnob 
with  disagreeable  ideas  of  object  lessons  and  the  num- 
ber of  vertebra)  in  birds.  In  Sunday-school  it  takes  up 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  OEGANON     197 

with  Noah's  Ark  ;  at  home  it  may  deal  with  the  delights 
of  the  backyard  dove-cote  or  the  charms  of  a  certain 
class  of  pie ;  in  the  country  it  may  form  the  centre  of  a 
system  of  snares. 

In  actual  life  the  common  man  —  our  friend  in  the 
street  —  keeps  all  his  systems  separate.  It  is  not  to 
point  a  moral,  but  to  illustrate  our  position  by  a 
generally  admitted  case,  that  we  refer  to  the  very 
common  practice  among  men  of  keeping  their  religious 
and  their  secular  systems  apart.  "  Six  days  shalt  thou 
labour  and  do  all  thy  work,  but  — "  quotes  the  adult 
John,  and  feels  that  he  has  by  this  antithesis  justified 
his  separation  of  the  two  worlds.  If  driven  into  a 
corner,  he  settles  the  matter  with  his  ultimatum  :  Busi- 
ness is  business,  which  is  manifestly  only  an  explicit 
statement  that  the  system  of  business  ideas  must  stand 
apart  from  all  other  systems.  The  flinty  banker  of 
the  city  is  the  indulgent  father  of  the  suburban  villa. 
Shylock  had  his  Jessica  system  as  well  as  his  Antonio 
one. 

To  some  extent  this  is  as  it  should  be  for  practical 
purposes.  A  man's  power  of  effective  work  would  be 
greatly  diminished  were  he  to  mix  his  systems.  In 
one  sense  it  is  right  to  remember  that  business  is  busi- 
ness. It  is  as  unwise  to  mingle  the  religious  system,  as 
such,  with  the  business  system,  as  to  mingle  the  business 
system  with  the  pleasure  system.  Each  system  must 
be  kept  apart,  but  they  must  be  all  correlated  in  the 
higher  unity  of  the  ego  that  makes  them.  We  must 
have  the  same  ego  in  different  systems,  not  a  different 
ego  in  each  system.  When  we  have  the  systems  entirely 


198  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

separate,  the  ego  is  the  servant,  the  system  the  master  ; 
the  system  makes  the  ego.  In  a  true  organism  this  is 
reversed.  The  ego  remains  unchanged,  is  true  to  itself 
in  all  the  different  systems,  and  thus  preserves  an  es- 
sential harmony  between  apparently  conflicting  systems. 
During  business  hours  the  ego  attends  strictly  to  busi- 
ness ;  but  if  a  question  of  morality  arises,  the  ego  does 
not  take  its  decision  from  the  system  in  which  it  finds 
itself  for  the  moment.  Being  itself  a  part  of  the  sys- 
tem, rfc  can  to  a  certain  extent  modify  that  system.  The 
ego  brings  its  own  morality. 

Our  main  concern  at  present  is  not  morality.  What 
is  true  of  the  moral  element  is  true  of  all  the  elements 
which  enter  largely  into  systems  of  ideas,  and  which 
must  therefore  share  in  regulating  those  systems.  The 
really  well-organized  soul  is  not  content  with  having 
systems;  it  must  also  understand  them.  Each  system, 
while  itself  an  organism  including  and  explaining 
smaller  organisms,  must  itself  be  included  under  and 
explained  by  a  still  wider  system.  This  ultimate  system 
for  each  individual  consists  of  ideas  inseparable  from 
the  ego  itself,  and  which  must  therefore  form  part  of  all 
the  subordinate  systems. 

While  few  have  this  unifying  system  in  anything 
like  good  working  order,  most  people  have  sufficient 
command  over  their  systems  to  know  at  once  when  an 
idea  gets  into  the  wrong  system.  Every  such  mis- 
placed idea  produces  a  peculiar  reaction  on  the  mind,  a 
sort  of  shock  which  is  .not  unpleasant,  and  is  the  psy- 
chological basis  of  a  joke.  An  idea  in  its  own  mass 
and  system  produces  no  shock,  calls  for  no  remark, 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  ORGANON     199 

rouses  no  desire  to  laugh.  A  lamb  in  a  field  is  an 
innocent  and  pretty  object  at  which  we  look  with 
pleasure,  and  pass  on  ;  it  is  exactly  what  we  expect  to 
find  there.  Yet  we  have  the  most  unimpeachable 
authority  for  believing  that  under  certain  circumstances 
the  lamb  becomes  very  funny.  In  one  of  our  school 
classics  we  are  told  that 

"  It  made  the  children  laugh  and  play, 
To  see  a  lamb  at  school." 

The  laugh  does  not  depend  upon  the  lamb  ;  any  idea 
not  legitimately  connected  with  school  work  will  pro- 
duce as  much  fun  as  Mary's  pet.  An  organ-grinder  in 
the  school-room,  or  even  a  postman,  will  do  as  well. 
A  policeman  at  the  master's  desk  would  be  intensely 
funny,  were  it  not  for  the  tragic  consequences  that 
usually  attend  the  transference  of  the  idea  of  a  police- 
man from  the  street  system  to  the  school  system.  For 
here  we  have  stumbled  upon  the  Aristotelian  limitation 
in  the  definition  of  the  ridiculous,  "What  is  out  of 
time  and  place,  without  danger." 

For  "without  danger"  it  may  be  well  to  read  "with- 
out an  excessive  shock."  The  sudden  appearance  in 
my  study  of  my  aunt,  whom  I  suppose  to  be  in  India,  is 
not  exactly  dangerous,  and  yet,  out  of  time  and  place 
as  she  undoubtedly  is,  I  feel  no  desire  to  laugh.  An 
idea  may  be  thrust  out  of  the  playground  system  into 
the  church  system  without  producing  any  comical 
impression.  The  shock  is  too  great.  A  vulgar  idea 
brought  into  contact  with  some  of  the  holiest  ideas  of 
our  church  system  is  indeed  incongruous,  but  the  shock 


200  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

is  unpleasant,  rousing  indignation  rather  than  laughter. 
With  this  limitation,  then,  that  incongruities  must  not 
produce  too  great  a  shock,  or  threaten  serious  conse- 
quences, it  is  true  that  the  appearance  of  an  idea  in  a 
system  to  which  it  is  alien  results  in  a  joke. 

This  is  clearly  seen  in  the  more  rudimentary  form  of 
jokes  popular  with  young  children  and  barbarous  adults. 
All  forms  of  the  practical  joke  consist  in  transporting 
bodily  an  object  from  one  system  of  things  to  another 
in  which  its  appearance  leads  to  unusual  consequences. 
Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  humour  of  simple  exaggera- 
tion, the  humour  of  the  hideous  caricature  kind  that 
is  so  fascinating  to  children  at  a  certain  stage.  The 
primordial  form  of  verbal  wit,  the  pitiful  quibble  known 
as  a  pun,  is  a  very  obvious  case  of  dragging  an  idea  out 
of  its  natural  system  and  forcing  it  into  an  alien  one. 

There  is  one  class  of  school  joke  that  does  tell  out  of 
school.  It  has  enlivened  the  pages  of  many  a  Blue 
Book,  and  has  shed  an  occasional  glimmer  of  humour 
over  the  prevailing  gloom  of  St.  Stephens  itself.  But 
"  howlers,"  as  this  class  are  technically  termed,  are 
claimed  to  be  not  schoolmasters'  jokes,  but  children's. 
Now  no  child  who  makes  a  howler  means  a  joke.  If 
he  does,  it  ceases  to  be  a  howler,  and  becomes  a  piece 
of  impertinence.  The  child  makes  the  remark ;  the 
teacher  or  the  inspector  makes  the  joke.  In  that  moth- 
eaten  favourite  of  the  scrap  columns  of  educational 
magazines,  the  tale  of  the  child  who  began  to  distin- 
guish between  a  widow  and  a  window  with  the  words : 
"  You  can  see  through  a  window,  but  — ,"  we  find  the 
child  interrupted  in  the  middle  of  a  commonplace  ex- 


A   NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   ORGANON  201 

planation.  The  joke  is  the  teacher's  own.  The  pupil 
who  explained  the  phrase  "  funeral  note  "  as  found  in 
The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore,  as  "  the  letter  inviting 
somebody  to  the  funeral,"  was  stating  what  he  believed 
to  be  a  commonplace  though  no  doubt  a  solemn  fact, 
and  must  have  been  greatly  shocked  at  the  unexpected 
laughter  of  the  inspector,  who  indeed,  by  all  the  rules 
of  the  game  of  etiquette,  was  the  last  man  who  should 
have  laughed,  seeing  that  the  joke  was  his  own.  The 
child  sees  nothing  to  laugh  at  in  his  plain  statement  •, 
if  he  does,  he  does  not  make  it,  for  one  does  not  jest 
with  one's  inspector. 

Here  we  seem  to  have  strayed  very  far  from  the 
theory,  not  to  say  the  practice,  of  education.  Nothing 
seems  farther  removed  from  the  work  of  an  ordinary 
school  than  joke-making  and  joke-understanding.  Yet 
when  one  conies  to  think  of  it,  is  not  one  of  the  main 
requirements  in  Standard  V.1  the  understanding  of 
jokes  ?  In  that  fatal  Standard  the  pupils  must  be 
able  to  reproduce  in  their  own  words  a  story  which  has 
been  twice  read  to  them.  The  inspectors  are  further 
required  to  select  a  story  with  a  definite  point  in  it. 
In  actual  practice  this  point  comes  to  be  a  joke.  The 
result  is  that  a  large  part  of  the  time  of  children  in  this 
Standard  is  taken  up  in  learning  how  to  catch  rapidly 
the  point  of  a  joke. 

The  training  is  capital,  and  would  be  much  better  if 

it  were  not  hampered,  as  it  is,  by  a  mass  of  grammatical 

minutiae  of  trifling  importance.     The  exercise  consists 

really  in   apperceiving  a  given  presented   content   by 

1  See  Scotch  and  English  Codes. 


202  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

means  of  the  appropriate  apperception  masses.  The 
apperception  mass  called  into  play  must  include  the 
whole,  of  which  the  matter  presented  shows  only 
the  part  or  parts. 

The  story  is  told,  for  example,  of  some  young  men 
who  wished  to  score  off  a  supposed-to-be-stupid  old 
grocer  and  provision  dealer.  They  ask  him  the  price 
of  a  yard  of  pork,  and  on  the  prompt  reply  "  fifteen 
shillings,"  invite  him  to  supply  a  yard.  Insisting  upon 
having  money  down  before  the  transaction  begins,  he 
does  a  capital  stroke  of  business  by  selling  three  pig's 
feet  as  a  yard  of  pig.  In  apperceiving  this  tale,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  apperceiver  must  find  the  word  feet 
belonging  to  two  quite  different  masses.  Both  of 
those  masses  must  be  called  into  play  before  the  point 
can  be  caught.  In  this  case  the  teacher  has  perfect 
confidence  that  there  is  a  mass  corresponding  to  the 
feet  that  make  up  yards,  and  another  to  the  feet  that 
make  up  pigs.  Every  Standard  V.  child  has  seen  a  pig 
or  its  picture,  and  every  Standard  V.  child  is  certified 
by  the  Education  Department  to  have  an  apperception 
mass  in  which  lineal  feet  are  quite  at  home.  The 
teacher  is  therefore  certain  that  those  two  masses  will 
compete  for  the  dome,  and  that  in  the  conflict  the  dis- 
parity of  the  two  kinds  of  feet  will  be  noted  with  the 
pleasant  shock  of  surprise  which  characterizes  this 
sudden  recognition  of  contradiction  where  harmony 
is  loudly  proclaimed. 

The  incongruity  here,  indeed,  appears  to  be  double. 
There  are  the  lineal  feet  in  the  pig  mass,  and  the  pig 
feet  in  the  lineal  mass.  Both  incongruities  no  doubt 


A   NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   ORGANON  203 

exert  an  influence,  but  the  prominent  incongruity  arises 
in  the  pig  system,  which,  from  its  concrete  setting,  natu- 
rally holds  the  more  important  place  in  the  childish 
mind. 

In  the  "  funeral  note "  case,  only  one  apperception 
mass  can  be  calculated  upon  at  the  start,  and  this 
marks  off  the  "howler"  from  the  genuine  joke.  The 
child  who  sees  a  joke  must  have  the  two  masses  at  his 
command.  It  is  true  that  he  can  be  taught  to  under- 
stand his  own  joke,  if  we  supply  the  lacking  mass1.  The 
word  funeral  is  dropped  for  a  moment,  and  the  atten- 
tion concentrated  on  "note."  This  idea  is  seen  to  fit 
into  two  different  masses,  —  the  letter  mass  and  the  musi- 
cal mass.  Next,  the  word  funeral  is  added,  and  it  is  seen 
that  this  makes  no  difference;  for  the  idea  of  funeral  can 
be  made  comfortable  in  both  masses.  To  begin  with, 
the  funeral  idea  is  only  connected  with  the  paper  note 
in  the  boy's  mind.  By  calling  up  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  battle-field,  it  is  made  plain  that  letter- writing  is 
not  largely  carried  on  in  the  midst  of  battle,  while  there 
is  a  kind  of  note  that  is  often  heard  immediately  before, 
and  sometimes  during  a  battle.  So  soon  as  John  com- 
pares the  two  masses,  he  has  no  difficulty  in  deciding  in 
which  the  idea  of  note  as  music  is  more  at  home.  He 
decides  from  knowledge.  When  he  does  perceive  the 
foolishness  of  his  first  answer,  he  sees  the  joke  enough 
to  smile,  hardly  to  laugh.  His  lack  of  enthusiasm  must 
not  be  set  down  to  imperfect  knowledge  now,  nor  even 
to  wounded  self-respect.  It  is  simply  that  the  process 
of  explanation  has  taken  away  that  shock  of  surprise 
which  is  essential  to  the  true  joke.  Those  who  have 


204  THE   HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

heard  a  Professor  of  Humanity  lecture  for  half  an  hour 
on  what  is  believed  to  be  a  Ciceronian  pun,  will  un- 
derstand John's  mirthless  acquiescence  in  the  musical 
solution. 

Some  jokes,  however,  do  not  admit  of  treatment  in 
this  way;  the  necessary  second  mass  may  be  an  impos- 
sibility at  the  stage  at  which  the  experiment  is  made. 
Punch's  weary  little  arithmetician  who  wished  she  was 
a  rabbit  because  she  had  heard  her  father  say  that 
they  "multiplied  so  quickly,"  would  require  to  wait 
for  a  year  or  two  before  she  could  laugh  at  her  own 
joke.  The  widow-window  joke  is  another  case  in  point. 
There  are  many  stages  in  the  understanding  of  this  joke. 
"  He  said  widow  for  window,"  the  youngsters  will  say 
with  a  laugh  ;  for  the  mere  confusion  of  the  two  sounds 
is  amusing  to  young  children.  By  and  by  the  meta- 
phorical meaning  of  "seeing  through"  a  person  may 
become  clear  enough  to  give  a  new  point  to  the  con- 
trast. The  full  force  of  the  joke  can  never  be  appre- 
ciated by  a  boy.  There  is  no  apperception  mass  of  widow 
in  his  soul  at  all  equal  to  the  demands  of  the  joke,  nor 
can  there  be,  till  long  after  he  has  ceased  to  be  a  boy. 

The  power  to  understand  a  joke  thus  comes  to  be  a 
criterion  of  intellectual  progress.  At  the  earliest  stages, 
children  both  accept  and  make  the  most  contradictory 
statements  without  at  all  seeing  the  humorous  aspect  of 
the  propositions  they  place  side  by  side.  Whilst  the 
apperception  masses  are  still  unorganized,  each  fact 
stands  in  its  own  system,  where,  being  quite  consistent 
with  its  surroundings,  it  arouses  no  comment.  It  is 
only  when  its  position  in  another  system  is  compared 


A  NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL  ORGANON  205 

with  its  position  in  this  that  trouble  can  arise.  The  free 
and  easy  ways  of  royal  personages  in  fairy  tales  seem 
perfectly  satisfactory  to  children  who  have  only  one 
system  in  which  to  observe  those  exalted  beings.  No 
fault  can  be  found  with  this  nursery  lopsidedness.  It 
is  inevitable.  It  is  different  at  a  later  stage,  where 
errors  are  allowed  to  remain  through  not  comparing  two 
systems  actually  within  the  permanent  content  of  the 
soul.  An  exasperatingly  familiar  illustration  of  this 
is  to  be  found  in  rule  of  thumb  applications  of  arith- 
metic. John  gets  his  problem  "  stated  "  as  best  he  can, 
and  loyally  multiplies  the  second  and  third  terms  and 
divides  by  the  first.  But  while  the  teacher  is  anxious 
to  know  how  many  yards  it  would  require  to  make 
sixteen  suits,  John  is  perfectly  content  to  reply 
£3272  :  10  :  6l|f .  A  few  words  are  usually  all  that  are 
necessary  to  turn  this  answer  into  something  for  John 
to  laugh  at.  But  apart  from  such  external  aid,  he  sees 
only  the  serious  side  of  the  matter.  His  figures  seem 
all  consistent  with  each  other,  and  there  is  nothing 
intrinsically  funny  in  a  large  sum  of  money  like  that. 
To  John  <£3272  :  10  :  6^||-  seems  eminently  in  its 
place  and  time  on  his  slate  and  during  school  hours. 
Besides,  under  a  vigilant  teacher,  there  is  always  an 
element  of  danger  in  having  a  wrong  answer. 

The  moment  John  can  laugh  at  his  answer,  he  under- 
stands at  least  what  is  wanted.  That  this  power  of 
appreciating  jokes  is  a  sort  of  gauge  of  intellectual 
readiness  and  general  intelligence  has  never  been  mathe- 
matically demonstrated.  Yet  it  has  not  remained  quite 
a  pious  opinion.  More  or  less  consciously,  inspectors 


206  THE   HERBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

of  schools  employ  this  test  in  estimating  that  vague 
quantity  known  in  their  reports  as  "  intelligence." 
Children  who  listen  to  a  funny  remark  with  the  same 
respectful  attention  that  they  give  to  the  dictation  les- 
son on  examination  day,  can  hardly  claim  a  high  degree 
of  intelligence. 

The  same  principle  may  be,  and  is,  applied  to  gauge 
the  intelligence  of  an  adult  audience,  and  if  due  allow- 
ance be  made  for  the  kind  of  joke,  as  well  as  for  the 
rapidity  with  which  it  is  apperceived,  the  principle  is 
scientifically  valid.  For  you  have  only  to  go  low 
enough  to  find  a  joke  that  will  fit  the  meanest  intelli- 
gence. A  highly  organized  mind  often  sees  no  joke  in 
what  seems  intensely  funny  to  a  mind  of  less  scope. 
Witness  the  unexpected  laughter  of  children  at  inci- 
dents in  which  we  see  nothing  but  the  veriest  common- 
place. The  explanation  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
narrower  mind  has  apperceived  a  certain  idea  only  in 
one  system.  Its  appearance  in  another  rouses -the 
usual  amusement  that  accompanies  such  an  innovation. 
The  wider  mind,  which  has  been  accustomed  to  find  the 
idea  in  both  systems,  receives  no  shock  in  finding  it  in 
either.  The  office  boy  who  has  never  seen  his  master 
save  in  the  regulation  frock  coat  and  silk  hat,  meets 
him  by  chance  in  the  country,  dressed  in  knickerbock- 
ers and  a  peaked  cap  and  finds  something  desperately 
funny  in  what  he  sees.  His  master's  family,  accustomed 
to  both  styles,  find  no  joke  in  the  matter. 

Jokes  must  not  be  judged  by  their  power  to  raise  a 
laugh.  There  are  jokes  that  insist  upon  our  laughing  ; 
others  are  content  with  a  chuckle ;  some  are  satisfied 


A  NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   ORGANON  207 

with  a  mere  gleam  of  intelligence.  This  last  class  in- 
cludes those  cases  in  which  an  idea  does  not  belong  to 

o 

a  system  in  which  it  is  found,  but  which  might  belong 
to  that  system.  There  is  nothing  incongruous  between 
the  idea  and  its  new  environment,  except  the  fact  that 
this  is  its  first  appearance  there. 

The  editor  of  a  comic  journal  would  draw  the  line 
at  this  last  class,  and  would  deny  their  right  to  be 
called  jokes  at  all.  Yet  from  the  teacher's  point  of 
view  they  rank  exactly  on  the  same  level  as  the  more 
laughable  sort.  They  owe  their  point  to  the  same 
mechanism,  and  are  indeed  of  more  common  applica- 
tion in  school  than  the  others.  Getting  a  child  to 
see  the  point  is  precisely  the  same  process,  whether  we 
wish  him  to  laugh  when  he  sees  it,  or  merely  to  feel  a 
thrill  of  intellectual  pleasure.  If  it  were  worth  the 
trouble,  an  unbroken  line  of  ascent,  or  descent,  could 
be  made  out  from  the  broadest  jokes,  through  the 
euphuistic  conceits,  to  the  finest  poetical  figures.  All 
our  most  delicate  poetical  fancies  are  psychologically 
only  refined  forms  of  joking.  When  Burns  compares 
our  transient  pleasures  to  poppies,  to  snowflakes,  to 
the  borealis,  to  the  rainbow,  he  introduces  the  idea  of 
pleasures  into  a  mass  in  which  it  has  not  before  ap- 
peared. It  is  not,  however,  out  of  time  and  place  in 
those  new  masses  ;  rather  the  main  beauty  of  the  figure 
lies  in  its  being  based  upon  the  fitness  of  the  old  idea 
in  a  new  setting.  The  reader's  mind  receives  a  shock, 
a  pleasant  shock,  at  each  new  intrusion  into  a  fresh 
mass ;  but  the  point  of  resemblance  is  kept  so  clearly 
before  the  mind  that  no  difficulty  is  felt  in  justifying 


208  THE  HEUBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  new  environment,  and  a  thrill  of  more  or  less  in- 
tense satisfaction  rewards  the  mind  which  has  discov- 
ered this  justification. 

But  this  satisfaction  may  be  earned  in  quite  a  differ- 
ent way.  Instead  of  being  supplied  with  the  primary 
idea,  and  enjoying  the  satisfaction  of  following  the 
poetic  fancy  into  each  new  mass,  the  mind  may  have 
the  masses  given,  and  be  set  to  discover  the  idea  which 
will  connect  those  masses.  What  used  to  be  so  popu- 
lar in  the  old  jest  books  under  the  name  of  riddles  gives 
us  an  illustration.  It  seems  a  great  fall  from  Burns  to 
riddles,  but  from  the  teacher's  point  of  view  it  is  a 
stooping  to  conquer.  Very  frequently  a  teacher's  ques- 
tions are  riddles  in  the  most  accurate  sense  of  the  word. 
No  doubt  it  sounds  grander  to  talk  of  "a  rider  to 
Euclid"  than  of  the  riddles  that  charmed  our  pre- 
preparatory  years,  yet  many  of  our  grandest  riders  are 
merely  rechristened  riddles.  In  the  riddle,  you  get 
the  second  part  of  the  simile  and  have  to  discover  the 
first  part,  or  you  get  the  metaphor  and  are  required  to 
discover  the  literal  truth. 

"  Out  of  the  eater  came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the 
strong  came  forth  sweetness,"  ran  the  riddle  that  Sam- 
son put  to  the  thirty  young  Philistines.  No  doubt  they 
carefully  examined  each  of  the  apperception  masses  at 
their  disposal,  to  find  actual  cases  of  meat  coming  forth 
from  eaters,  and  sweetness  coming  from  strong  persons 
or  things.  Naturally  they  failed  at  first,  since  Samson 
had  taken  the  precaution  to  tell  no  one,  not  even  his 
own  parents,  about  the  lion  that  the  bees  had  turned 
into  a  hive. 


A  NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL  ORGANON  209 

Iii  the  equally  famous  riddle  :  — 

"  What  goes  on  four  feet,  on  two  feet  and  three, 
But  the  more  feet  it  goes  on  the  weaker  it  be?" 

there  is  more  hope  for  the  guesser,  as  of  course  there 
ought  to  be  in  view  of  the  higher  stake.  Taking  a 
general  look  at  the  lines,  we  infer  that  an  animal  of 
some  kind  is  meant ;  for  the  mystery  not  only  has  feet 
as  a  table  or  a  stool  may  have,  but  it  goes,  and  becomes 
weaker.  To  be  sure,  (Edipus  would  have  been  unwise 
to  risk  his  life  on  such  an  assumption  ;  for  in  riddles  the 
metaphor  is  allowed  an  altogether  dangerous  license. 
Still,  following  the  line  of  least  resistance,  he  would 
probably  turn  to  the  apperception  masses  that  dealt 
with  animals.  Here,  being  an  experienced  reader  of 
riddles,  he  would  at  once  select  the  less  common  class 
of  animals  suggested.  There  are  more  quadrupeds 
than  bipeds,  more  bipeds  than  tripeds.  His  hopes 
would,  without  doubt,  rise  when  he  came  to  tripeds ;  for, 
in  truth,  the  class  does  not  exist.  If  the  mystery  be  an 
animal  at  all,  then,  it  is  in  the  triped  part  of  the  prob- 
lem that  one  must  look  for  the  metaphorical  part  that 
causes  the  trouble  in  all  riddles.  Now  the  kangaroo 
has  a  pretty  trick,  it  appears,  of  sitting  upon  its  tail  and 
its  two  hind  legs,  when  fighting.  Same  idea  of  this 
kind  might  have  set  OEdipus  on  entirely  false  lines ; 
but,  fortunately,  he  had  not  even  heard  of  a  kangaroo, 
and  was  limited  in  his  metaphorical  applications.  From 
the  swarm  of  ideas  of  animals  that  claimed  admission 
into  the  dome  of  his  consciousness,  it  would  be  strange 
if  the  most  important  animal  of  all  were  absent.  So 


210  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

soon  as  the  problem  came  to  be,  which  animal  can  be 
most  readily  represented  metaphorically  as  three-legged, 
it  would  at  once  occur  to  him  that  it  is  more  natural  to 
add  one  leg  to  a  man,  than  to  cut  off  one  from  a  quad- 
ruped. The  additional  leg  is  easily  supplied  in  the 
form  of  the  staff  of  old  age.  The  reference  to  the 
weakness  of  quadruped  infancy,  as  compared  with 
sturdy  biped  manhood,  would  at  once  suggest  itself, 
and  CEdipus  would  give  out  his  answer  with  little  fear 
of  a  sudden  termination  of  his  days. 

In  the  poetical  figure,  you  are  supplied  with  the 
proper  system  or  mass ;  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  apply 
properly  the  materials  given,  the  development  comes 
from  within.  In  the  riddle  you  get  the  development, 
and  are  required  to  discover  the  appropriate  system  or 
mass.  In  reading  a  good  poem  we  are  apt  to  remark 
how  true  the  comparisons  are.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  of  the  most  appropriate  comparisons  would  be 
quite  unintelligible,  were  the  key  not  supplied  in  the 
title  of  the  poem.  Many  people  object  to  Browning's 
poetry,  and  say  they  do  not  understand  it.  What  they 
really  want  is  an  intimation,  at  the  head  of  each  poem, 
of  the  system  or  mass  under  which  the  poem  is  to  be 
apperceived.  Frequently  one  fails  to  appreciate  a 
poem  because  ojie  does  not  understand  the  tone  in 
which  it  is  written.  We  need  hardly  go  to  Dickens' 

"  Upon  the  log 
Lay  the  expiring  frog," 

or  to  Mascarille's 

"Au  voleur,  au  voleur,  au  voleur,  au  voleur," 


A  NEGLECTED  EDUCATIONAL  OKGANON     211 

for  examples.     We  come  across  milder  cases  of  the  same 
thing  every  day. 

The  complaint  is  sometimes  made  that  in  poetry  we 
do  not  want  a  problem  ;  we  want  beautiful  thoughts  in 
clear  language.  Now  no  one  will  accuse  Wordsworth 
of  being  difficult  or  obscure,  yet  even  in  his  poetry  a 
verse  taken  by  itself,  and  without  the  aid  of  the  title, 
resolves  itself  into  a  riddle.  Take  the  verse  :  — 

"  A  little  Cyclops,  with  one  eye 
Staring  to  threaten  and  defy, 
That  thought  comes  next  —  and  instantly 

The  freak  is  over, 

The  shape  will  vanish  —  and  behold 
A  silver  shield  with  boss  of  gold, 
That  spreads  itself,  some  faery  bold 
In  fight  to  cover." 

Experiment  has  shown  me  that  to  a  class  of  intelli- 
gent students  who  did  not  happen  to  know  the  lines 
before,  this  passage  was  an  insoluble  riddle.  A  clever 
Senior  class  in  school  naturally  gave  the  same  result. 
Explaining  all  the  difficult  words  had  no  effect.  •  Yet 
the  mere  hint  that  the  subject  was  a  flower,  at  once  led  to 
sixty-seven  per  cent  of  the  class  writing  down  correctly 
the  word  daisy.  Among  those  who  were  still  wrong, 
eight  per  cent  scored  an  outer  with  sunflower,  which,  but 
for  the  "  silver,"  fits  the  description  as  well  as  the  daisy. 
The  word  flower  gave  the  system.  The  rest  follows 
naturally. 

The  great  importance  of  this  preliminary  knowledge 
of  the  system  to  be  called  into  play  has  been  frequently 
demonstrated  by  practical  experiment  among  the  psy- 


212  THE   HERBAKTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

chophysicists,  the  previous  knowledge  of.  the  system  to 
be  called  into  play  being  shown  to  materially  diminish 
the  time  required  for  nervous  reaction.  Von  Kries, 
indeed,  has  a  theory  of  connective  cerebral  arrange- 
ments by  which  the  brain  is  assumed  to  switch  the 
stream  of  thought  in  this  direction  or  that.  His  illus- 
tration is  the  clef  in  Music  determining  the  meaning 
of  all  the  notes  that  follow  it.  An  equally  good  illus- 
tration might  be  the  stop  of  an  organ,  which  gives  a 
new  character  to  the  whole  harmony  so  long  as  it  is  in 
action.  When  we  take  up  a  French  book,  for  example, 
out  comes  the  French  stop,  and  the  whole  mental  appa- 
ratus adopts  the  French  style  of  vocabulary  and  con- 
struction. So  long  as  this  stop  is  out,  we  shall  never 
mistake  pour  for  a  verb,  or  main  for  an  adjective.  It 
was  because  the  English  stop  was  out,  that  a  clever 
schoolboy  thought  Jugurtha  was  a  horse,  because  he 
had  read  about  Jugurtha' s  manes. 

Nowhere  does  this  connective  cerebral  arrangement 
for  calling  up  appropriate  systems  receive  a  better  prac- 
tical illustration  than  in  the  questions  set  by  teachers 
to  their  pupils.  Each  such  question  ought,  as  one  of  its 
essential  qualities,  to  indicate  the  system  to  which  it 
belongs.  Yet  there  is  no  more  common  mistake  in 
teaching  than  to  ask  a  question  out  of  a  certain  system 
in  the  teacher's  mind,  without  in  any  way  giving  the 
pupil  a  clue  as  to  which  system  it  is.  The  teacher,  for 
example,  has  out  the  dull  stop  of  chronology,  and  asks  : 
"  When  did  Charles  the  First  die  ?  "  Out  of  the  highly 
coloured  picture  system  that  forms  so  large  a  part  of 
the  average  child's  soul,  comes  the  unexpected  reply : 


A   NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   ORGANON  213 

"  On  a  raw  and  frosty  winter  morning. "  From  the 
system  of  historical  incidents  the  teacher  asks :  "  How 
did  David  the  Second  die  ?  "  With  the  grammatical 
stop  full  out,  the  child  answers,  innocent  of  guile, 
"Childless."  With  his  mind  full  of  the  discussion  on 
the  purification  of  the  Clyde,  the  teacher  puts  the  prob- 
lem :  "  Bruce  in  his  old  age  lived  at  Roseneath.  While 
living  there  he  may  have  fished  in  the  river  Clyde. 
Why  could  he  not  fish  there  now?  "  Pulling  out  to  its 
full  extent  the  stop  of  common  sense,  the  child  replies : 
"  Because  he's  dead." 

This  class  of  blunder  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  ordinary  howler.  There  is,  indeed,  no  blunder  at 
all.  Teacher  and  pupil  are  both  right,  the  misunder- 
standing lies  in  the  different  backgrounds  supplied  in 
the  two  cases.  When  such  a  mistake  occurs,  the  wise 
teacher  will  take  the  blame  to  himself.  Had  he,  by  a 
few  words  of  explanation  or  warning,  made  sure  that  he 
and  John  were  working  in  the  same  system,  the  mis- 
take could  not  have  arisen.  In  the  riddle  method  of 
teaching,  the  case  is  different.  The  quotation  from 
Wordsworth  may  be  used  as  a  school  exercise  in  two 
ways.  Starting  from  what  the  children  know  about 
this  little  flower,  the  various  comparisons  in  the  text 
may  be  worked  out  to  the  profit  and  pleasure  of  the 
class.  This  is  the  usual  way. 

But  the  riddle  method  may  be  adopted,  and,  as  many 
are  inclined  to  think,  with  much  better  results.  Cer- 
tainly it  demands  more  effort,  more  ingenuity  ;  and  is 
more  in  keeping  with  the  doctrine  of  finality  in  teach- 
ing. It  is  not  a  following,  but  a  feeling  of  one's  way, 


214  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

a  seeking  of  an  end,  a  finding  of  means.  Obviously 
it  is  a  case  of  Holmes'  reasoning  backwards.  Certain 
facts  are  given.  These  must  be  apperceived,  and 
arranged  in  such  a  way  as  to  involve  no  contradic- 
tion. So  soon  as  this  has  been  accomplished,  the  riddle 
is  solved.  If  the  answer  is  not  what  the  propounder 
expected,  it  proves,  not  that  the  answer  is  false,  but 
that  the  riddle  is  bad.  If  Wordsworth's  description 
could  apply  equally  well  to  something  other  than 
the  daisy,  the  poem  would,  to  that  extent,  lose  the 
charm  of  truth. 

Whatever  good  can  be  derived  from  paraphrasing 
and  translation  is  due  to  this  system-seeking.  Every 
paraphrase  or  translation  worthy  of  the  name  is  based 
upon  a  hypothesis  as  to  the  system  of  ideas  involved. 
The  word-by-word  boy  is  hopeless.  Examiners  are 
never  tired  of  complaining  that  Candidates  do  not  take 
a  passage  as  a  whole  and  seek  to  draw  from  it  some 
connected  and  rational  meaning.  This  amounts  to 
nothing  else  than  a  complaint  that  candidates  do  not, 
in  their  own  slang,  "  make  more  shots  "  at  the  meaning. 
What  the  examiner  really  wants  is  more  scientific  and 
intelligent  guesswork.  With  a  stiff  piece  of  Latin 
prose  to  translate  into  English,  the  candidate  goes 
through  three  processes.  First  he  reads  it  over,  pick- 
ing out  all  the  words  or  idioms  that  he  knows.  Each 
known  word  or  phrase  or  reference  is  a  centre  round 
which  ideas  gather.  The  second  step  is  to  make  some 
sort  of  hypothesis  as  to  the  general  meaning  of  the 
whole  passage  —  a  description,  a  speech,  an  argument, 
or  what-not.  This  hypothesis  must  be  such  as  to  fit 


A  NEGLECTED   EDUCATIONAL   ORGANON  215 

into  all  the  known  words,  and  must  fix  the  tone  of  the 
whole.  The  third  process  consists  in  working  back- 
wards from  this  hypothesis,  and  constraining  each 
unknown  word  and  idiom  to  take  a  meaning  in  con- 
formity with  the  hypothesis.  In  the  case  of  prepara- 
tion by  means  of  a  dictionary,  this  third  stage  takes 
the  form  of  verification,  just  as  Holmes'  proceedings 
after  a  case  is  once  started  are  merely  a  hunt  for  verifi- 
cations. Naturally  the  greater  the  number  of  known 
words,  the  better  the  hypothesis,  and  the  more  cer- 
tain the  "shots"  at  the  unknown  words,  till  at  last 
a  point  is  reached  at  which  the  circle  of  induction  is 
practically  complete,  and  the  initial  hypothesis  coincides 
with  the  final  result  of  analysis  and  verification. 


CHAPTER   IX 

GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES 

THE  Schoolmen  made  great  case  of  the  distinction 
between  the  primary  qualities  of  an  object,  and  the 
secondary  qualities.  We  have  seen  in  Chapter  III. 
that  man  is  generally  admitted  to  be  the  measure  of  the 
secondary  qualities,  such  as  colour  and  taste,  but  not 
of  the  primary,  which  include  such  essential  qualities 
as  extension.  With  this  agrees  the  prevailing  impres- 
sion among  teachers  of  the  extreme  efficacy  of  draw- 
ings as  a  means  of  illustration.  The  secondary  quali- 
ties may  be  modified  by  their  passage  through  our 
senses,  but  it  is  supposed  that  such  a  primary  quality 
as  extension  cannot  be  in  any  way  modified  by  the 
senses  of  the  observer. 

In  Chapter  VI.  we  have  seen  cause  to  reject  this 
view.  Even  a  simple  straight  line  may  mean  some- 
thing slightly  different  to  each  new  observer,  and  the 
greater  the  number  of  lines  in  a  drawing,  the  greater 
the  range  within  which  its  interpretation  by  different 
observers  may  vary. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  a  sense  in  which  a  drawing  does 
aid  in  establishing  a  common  understanding  between 
two  observers.  We  may  be  quite  unable  to  understand 
a  certain  drawing,  or  we  may  make  quite  a  different 
interpretation  of  it  from  that  intended  by  the  draughts- 

216 


GRAPHIC    HYPOTHESES  217 

man  ;  but  when  two  persons  are  talking  about  the  draw- 
ing that  lies  before  them,  there  is  at  least  something  to 
go  upon,  there  is  a  sort  of  least  common  denominator 
of  thought,  to  which  all  the  ideas  of  each  party  must 
be  reduced  before  agreement  can  be  expected. 

Many  teachers  make  an  occasional  use  of  this  method 
to  test  the  accuracy  with  which  their  pupils  are  taking 
in  the  information  that  is  being  supplied,  and  very  fre- 
quently peculiar  misunderstandings  are  thus  brought 
to  light.  For  example,  a  class  of  training-college 
students  was  set  to  make  a  drawing  of  Robinson 
Crusoe's  tent  from  the  description  given  in  the  story. 
Two  or  three  drew  a  Union  Jack  lying  flat  upon  the 
roof  of  the  tent,  and  when  the  accuracy  of  this  particu- 
lar was  called  in  question,  they  justified  themselves  by 
referring  to  the  text  in  which  we  find  the  statement 
that  the  roof  was  loaded  "  with  flags  and  large  leaves 
of  trees,  like  a  thatch."  l  It  is  obvious  that  there  was 
here  a  double  blunder,  for  on  November  23,  1659, 
there  were  no  Union  Jacks  of  the  pattern  represented. 
Yet,  apart  from  the  drawing,  neither  blunder  would 
have  been  suspected. 

Mr.  Henry  J.  Barker  tells  of  an  inspector  of  schools 
who  used  to  ask  candidates  to  illustrate  their  answers 
by  sketches,  but  who  "  obtained  from  time  to  time 
such  ludicrous  embodiments  from  the  lads,  that  he 
decided  to  abandon  his  new  method,  and  to  remain  sat- 
isfied with  verbal  responses,  without  troubling  himself 
whether  they  were  p.ctual  expressions  of  knowledge 
or  not."  As  an  inspector,  he  was  right  to  give  up 
1  Bobinson  Crusoe,  Chap.  V, 


218 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 


his'  plan.  Had  he  been  a  teacher,  he  ought  to  have 
persevered.  A  specimen  case  of  his  method  gives  just 
that  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  John's  mind  that 
every  good  teacher  should  seek. 

"  On  one  occasion,  for  instance,  during  the  course  of 
an  examination  in  Geography,  he  requested  a  boy  to 
delineate  on  the  blackboard  his  conception  of  a  'vol- 
cano.' The  pupil  readily  did  so  ;  and  produced  a 
rough  chalk-drawing,  the  chief  features  of  which  ap- 
peared to  be  a  truncated  cone,  a  rainbow  of  lava  and 
fire,  and  a  sort  of  extinguisher. 

"  *  Yes,'  said  the  inspector,  '  that  is  fairly  good.  But 
that  object  on  the  right,  my  boy,  —  what  is  it  ?  ' 


Fio.  8. 

" '  Oh,'  answered  the  lad,  looking  fondly  at  the  object 
indicated, '  that,  sir,  be  the  parish  church  of  Pompeii ! ' " l 

This  mingling  of  the  concrete  with  the  abstract,  the 
general  with  the  particular,  is  a  fruitful  source  of  mis- 
understanding. A  diagram  should  be  a  diagram,  and 
not  a  picture.  So  soon  as  the  picture  element  is  intro- 

1  Our  Boys  and  Girls  at  School  (Arrowsmith's  Bristol  Library), 
p.  82. 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  219 

duced,  it  carries  with  it  a  sort  of  side  interest  that 
interferes  with  the  main  point  to  be  illustrated.  Mr. 
W.  H.  Mallock,  for  example,  wishing  to  illustrate  va- 
rious facts  in  social  economics,  uses  picture-diagrams,  — 
houses,  men,  suits  of  clothes,  loaves,  and  so  forth,  - 
which  certainly  attract  too  much  attention  to  them- 
selves as  drawings,  to  their  hurt  as  illustrations.  In 
some  cases,  indeed,  they  convey  an  impression  contrary 
to  that  intended.  Thus  we  have  two  men,1  one  very 
fat,  and  one  very  lean,  the  first  to  represent  the  income 
accruing  from  the  cultivation  of  soil  of  the  best  qual- 
ity, the  second  to  represent  the  other  extreme.  So  far 
as  I  am  personally  concerned,  the  picture  would  em- 
phatically lead  me  to  prefer  the  worse  soil,  for  the  poor 
fat  fellow  seems  in  a  very  bad  way  indeed.  The  best 
soil  seems  dear  at  the  price  of  such  an  unwieldy  body, 
and  such  a  fatuous  expression.  Yet  it  does  not  appear 
that  this  is  quite  the  impression  Mr.  Mallock  means  to 
convey.  A  plain  pair  of  columns  of  different  heights 
would  serve  his  purpose  far  better. 

Diagrams  ought  to  be  as  abstract  as  possible,  unless 
the  picture  itself  forms  a  part  of  the  idea  intended  to 
be  conveyed.  A  newspaper  does  well,  for  instance,  in 
publishing  a  shooting  competition  score,  to  reproduce  a 
picture  of  the  target  opposite  each  marksman's  name, 
with  the  actual  hits  represented  on  it ;  since  here  the 
target  is  itself  an  integral  part  of  the  idea  it  illustrates. 

Into  such  bad  odour  has  the  unfortunate  word  ab- 
stract  fallen   in   its   educational   connections,    that    it 
requires  some  courage  to  fight  its  battle.     Teachers 
1  Classes  and  Masses,  p.  51.     A.  and  C.  Black,  1896. 


220  THE   HERBAETIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

are  too  apt  to  forget  that  the  progress  of  education  is 
from  concrete  to  abstract.  Like  everything  else,  ab- 
stractness  is  only  an  evil  when  out  of  its  proper  place. 
It  must  be  the  goal,  not  the  beginning.  Since  the 
Orbis  Pictus,  an  unillustrated  school-book  is  a  thing  to 
be  apologized  for.  In  books  for  very  young  children, 
we  print  T-O-P  in  the  text,  and  add  a  picture  of  the 
toy  in  the  margin,  so  that  word  and  thing  may  become 
indissolubly  connected.  Whenever  the  word  top  occurs 
thereafter,  we  hope  that  the  picture  will  immediately 
spring  up  in  the  child's  mind.  At  a  later  stage  this 
pictorial  association,  so  far  from  being  a  help,  becomes 
a  positive  hindrance.  We  want  the  child  to  use  the 
word  as  a  symbol ;  we  do  not  wish  each  word  to  be 
hampered  in  its  flight  by  the  necessity  of  carrying 
about  with  it  a  picture  which  demands  to  be  brought 
to  light  every  time  the  word  is  used.  We  want  our 
words  to  be  "  winged,"  and  a  picture  is  a  sad  limitation 
to  this  Homeric  freedom. 

There  are  other  cases  in  which  a  picture  hampers 
instead  of  aiding  thought.  Certain  ideas  are  better  left 
in  words,  inasmuch  as  they  do  not  lend  themselves  to 
representation  in  terms  of  extension.  Some  of  Blake's 
drawings  belong  to  this  class.  The  soul  is  not  suited 
for  pictorial  representation.  It  is  true  that  Fisher 
Unwin  has  published  a  set  of  four  beautifully  executed 
plates,  with  accompanying  letterpress,  which  represent 
diagrammatically  the  qualities  of  various  kinds  of  souls. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  book  is  a  costly 
satire  upon  Mr.  Galton,  or  the  honest  endeavour  of 
some  well-to-do  amateur  psychologist  to  set  forth  his 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  221 

peculiar  fancies.  For  us  the  important  thing  is  that, 
except  as  representing  the  individual  impression  of  the 
author's  mind  with  regard  to  souls,  the  drawings  are 
absolutely  worthless. 

In  a  little  book  published  by  the  London  Sunday- 
school  Union,  entitled  The  Blackboard  in  the  Sunday- 
school^  there  are  many  illustrations  that  from  their 
very  nature  must  be  regarded  as  failures.  The  follow- 
ing, for  instance,1  is  a  remarkable  way  of  demonstrating 
the  process  of  conversion.  The  blackboard  is  divided 
by  a  horizontal  line  into  two  parts.  Above  the  line, 
on  the  left,  is  a  graphic  representation  of  the  sun  ;  this, 
we  are  told,  stands  for  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.  On 
the  lower  side  of  the  board  is  an  inverted  man  who 
appears  to  be  walking  upside  down  along  the  line  and 
away  from  the  sun.  This  represents  the  sinner  going 
"into  deeper  darkness  and  further  from  God."  The 
pose  is  justified  by  the  apt  quotation,  "The  way  of 
the  wicked  he  turneth  upside  down"  (Ps.  cxlvi.).  The 
teacher  asks,  "How  shall  he  be  saved?"  Prov.  xxviii. 
18  gives  the  clue  to  the  answer :  "  Whoso  walketh 
uprightly  shall  be  saved."  The  transaction  is  con- 
cluded by  an  application  of  Jer.  xxxi.  18  :  "  Turn  thou 
me,  and  I  shall  be  turned."  The  second  picture  shows 
the  sinner  duly  inverted,  walking  cheerily  along  the 
line  towards  the  sun. 

Is  any  comment  needed  ?  Is  the  process  of  conver- 
sion made  any  clearer,  not  to  say  more  sacred,  by  seeing 
a  chalk  man  turn  a  somersault?  There  are  certain 
things  that  are  better  left  undrawn. 

1  Page  63. 


222  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

Do  the  illustrations  to  works  of  imagination  really 
help  the  reader  to  a  better  comprehension  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  author  ?  It  depends  entirely  upon  the  class 
of  literature.  Gustave  Dore,  for  example,  has  adopted 
a  class  of  subjects  for  illustration  that  had  much  better 
have  been  left  alone.  Many  of  his  pictures  are  such 
as  to  ruin  the  text  he  seeks  to  illustrate,  in  the  eyes  of 
all  who  have  any  sense  of  humour.  Milton  has  been 
often  praised  for  his  reticence  in  not  fully  describing 
Satan.  Can  we  say  as  much  for  the  illustrators  of 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress  ?  Besides,  it  is  the  rarest  thing 
in  literature  to  find  a  work  that  is  really  illustrated. 
The  illustrator  is  merely  a  man  who  comes  between  the 
author  and  the  reader,  and  imposes  his  meaning  on  the 
words  of  the  book.  In  the  Life  of  Dickens  l  by  Forster, 
you  will  find  a  double  sheet  of  Dombeys  to  illustrate 
the  tale  of  Dombey  and  Son.  The  whole  twenty-nine 
faces  seem  to  the  ordinary  reader  typical  of  the  sort  of 
man  Dombey  is  represented  to  be ;  but  none  of  them 
pleased  Dickens,  who  hankered  after  a  certain  gentle- 
man in  the  city,  whom  he  was  anxious  for  the  artist  to  see, 
as  being  "the  very  Dombey."  The  only  case  in  which 
a  work  of  this  class  can  be  truly  said  to  be  illustrated 
is  when  the  author  and  artist  are  one,  as  in  Trilby. 

In  addition  to  this  almost  insuperable  difficulty  in 
representing  the  exact  picture  in  the  author's  mind, 
there  is  the  more  common  danger  of  purely  illiterate 
misconception  of  the  plain  meaning.  What  could  be 
clearer  than 

1  Vol.  II.,  p.  317,  shows  seventeen  Dombeys  — the  remaining  twelve 
appear  on  p.  318. 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES       .  223 

"  Some  village  Hampden,  that,  with  dauntless  breast, 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood  "  ? 

Yet  in  an  illustrated  edition 1  I  find  that  the  word  little 
has  misled  the  artist  into  representing  the  village 
Hampden  as  a  boy  who  defends  a  little  girl  and  a  lamb 
from  the  attacks  of  two  bigger  ruffianly  boys. 

Still,  when  information  of  a  primary  kind  is  to  be 
given,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  drawings  are  of 
the  utmost  service  in  the  way  of  expressing  the  author's 
meaning.  In  Robinson  Crusoe  there  are  several  points 
in  which  a  few  lines  by  way  of  a  diagram  would  save  a 
great  deal  of  writing,  and  prevent  much  confusion,  both 
to  writer  and  reader.  I  am  convinced  that  De  Foe  used 
a  more  or  less  elaborate  chart  in  the  preparation  of  his 
story,  but  he  occasionally  used  it  carelessly.  It  is  little  to 
the  credit  of  the  various  editors  of  this  wonderful  romance 
that  so  many  errors  should  have  remained  unnoticed. 
The  explanation  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
no  map  (so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover)  has  been 
published  of  the  Island  of  Despair.  Had  it  been  other- 
wise, it  could  not  have  failed  to  be  noticed  that  in  Chap- 
ter X.  he  uses  the  phrase  "  against  the  shore  at  the  east" 
where  the  whole  context,  viewed  in  connection  with  a 
map,  demands  west.  This  whole  passage  is  so  confus- 
ing, when  not  illustrated  by  a  map,  that  some  editors 
have  calmly  omitted  it  altogether.  Again,  at  the  end 
of  Chapter  XXII.,  we  are  told  that  the  savages  "  always 
landed  on  the  east  parts  of  the  island,"  though  we  know 
from  the  whole  story  that  their  usual  landing-place  was 
the  southwest  corner  of  the  island,  and  we  are  explicitly 
1  Sampson  Low,  Son  &  Co.,  1858. 


224  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

told,  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  XIV.,  that  they  never 
came  to  the  "  east  part  of  the  island. " 

Further,  about  the  middle  of  Chapter  XXV.,  we  are 
told  that  the  white  men  wished  to  drive  the  savages 
into  "  the  farther  part  of  the  island  southwest,  that  if 
any  more  came  on  shore  they  might  not  find  one 
another."  Here  southeast  is  evidently  what  De  Foe 
meant,  and  southeast  is  actually  used  in  the  third  para- 
graph following. 

As  an  illustration  of  a  false  impression  conveyed  by 
a  verbal  description,  where  a  sketch  map  would  have 
been  absolutely  unambiguous,  take  the  following  : 
Robinson,  in  giving  an  account  of  his  survey  of  the 
island,1  tells  us  that  he  walked  "still  due  north, 
with  a  ridge  of  hills  on  the  south  and  north  side  of 
me." 

This  apparently  means  that  there  was  a  ridge  of  hills 
extending  from  east  to  west,  and  lying  to  the  north  of 
Crusoe's  path,  and  a  similar  parallel  ridge  to  the  south. 
But  the  context  lets  us  know  that  he  was  following  the 
course  of  a  stream,  and  it  is  highly  improbable  that  the 
stream  would  cut  its  way  through  two  hills  that  lay 
directly  in  its  course.  By  and  by  the  state  of  affairs 
becomes  clear  when  we  are  told  that  he  comes  to  a  place 
where  he  finds  "  an  opening  where  the  country  seemed 
to  descend  to  the  west."  He  speaks,  too,  of  getting,  at 
this  point,  a  clear  view  to  the  west ;  all  implying  that 
up  to  that  point  he  had  had  a  north  and  south  ridge 
running  along  the  left  of  his  course.  After  considering 
all  this,  it  struck  me  that  it  would  be  an  interesting 
i  Chap.  VII. 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  225 

thing  to  find  out  how  far  Crusoe's  Island  was  clearly 
apprehended  by  the  readers  of  De  Foe's  narrative,  par- 
ticularly as  I  thus  saw  my  way  to  obtain  a  sort  of 
tangible  example  of  the  method  of  reasoning  by  hy- 
pothesis referred  to  in  last  chapter.  The  editor  of  the 
Boy's  Own  Paper  agreed  to  arrange  for  a  competition, 
and  offered  five  guineas  in  the  way  of  prize-money. 
The  following  were  the  instructions  issued  to  inter/ding 
competitors :  — 

"  What  is  wanted  is  a  map  of  Robinson  Crusoe's  Island, 
such  as  he  might  have  showed  to  his  friends  after  he  came 
home.  It  should  indicate  the  size  and  position  of  the 
island,  and  the  position  of  all  the  important  places, 
such  as  the  creek,  the  castle,  the  arbour,  the  grotto, 
the  spot  where  the  footprint  was  found,  where  the 
shipwreck  took  place,  where  the  savages  used  to  land. 
The  general  nature  of  the  surface  of  the  island  should 
also  be  indicated,  —  the  hills,  valleys,  rocks,  and  currents. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  we  do  not  really  know 
the  shape  of  the  island,  —  though  a  well-known  island 
has  been  named  Robinson  Crusoe's,  —  so  each  competi- 
tor must  choose  a  shape  for  himself,  the  only  limit 
being  that  the  shape  chosen  must  suit  all  the  events  of 
the  story. 

"  As  this  is  rather  a  new  kind  of  competition,  it  may 
not  be  amiss  to  give  some  hints  how  to  go  about  draw- 
ing the  map.  Get  a  copy  of  the  story  Robinson  Crusoe 
and  read  it  over  with  a  pencil  in  your  hand.  As 
often  as  you  come  across  any  remark  bearing  upon  the 
position  of  the  island,  note  carefully  what  is  said,  and 
make  at  the  same  time  a  pencil  mark  at  the  margin. 


226  THE   HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  doing  this  you  will  be  greatly  helped  by  keeping 
clearly  before  your  mind  the  questions  you  wish  the 
book  to  answer.  For  example,  you  want  to  know 
whether  the  island  was  longer  from  east  to  west  or  from 
north  to  south  ;  what  the  greatest  length  of  it  was  ;  on 
which  side  Robinson  was  wrecked ;  which  side  was 
nearest  the  mainland.  Some  of  those  questions  are  not 
answered  directly,  but  a  little  common  sense,  and  the 
putting  of  two  and  two  together,  will  answer  them 
and  many  more.  After  you  have  read  over  the  whole 
story,  look  up  all  the  marked  parts,  and  make  up  your 
mind  as  to  the  general  bearing  of  all  the  facts  ;  then  put 
your  map  on  paper  in  the  way  you  usually  draw  your 
maps.  You  may  draw  your  map  on  any  size  and  kind 
of  paper  you  please,  and  either  colour  it  or  not  as  you 
think  best.  The  one  thing  of  importance  is  to  make 
your  map  agree  with  the  story.  Above  all,  don't  be 
afraid  to  send  in  your  map  once  you  have  begun  it. 
It  may  not  look  well,  and  may  even  have  some  mistakes 
in  it,  and  yet  be  a  capital  map  for  all  that." 

Over  one  hundred  and  fifty  maps  in  all  were  sub- 
mitted. They  came  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and 
represented  all  ages  from  nine  to  thirty-two.  Girls 
as  well  as  boys  competed,  and  there  was  every  trace  of 
all  sorts  of  social  differences  among  the  competitors. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  one  in  examining  those 
maps  is  the  unlikeness  that  exists  among  them.  They 
are  all  carefully  labelled  Robinson  Crusoe's  Island,  and  yet 
no  two  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  are  alike.  In  view 
of  this  deplorable  difference  of  opinion,  our  thoughts 
may  take  one  of  two  directions.  On  the  one  hand,  we 


GRAPHIC    HYPOTHESES  227 

may  ask  contemptuously,  what  does  it  matter  ?  Robin- 
son Crusoe  was  not  written  to  provide  material  for  a 
map-drawing  competition.  Very  probably  some  of  the 
worst  maps  are  the  work  of  boys  who  have  the  keenest 
interest  in  and  appreciation  of  the  story.  With  this 
criticism  we  must  all  have  a  good  deal  of  sympathy. 
Every  genuine  lover  of  pure  literature  shudders  when 
he  sees  a  play  of  Shakespeare  or  a  sonnet  of  Milton  de- 
graded to  be  material  for  examinations.  The  other 
day  in  London  a  literary  man,  while  wondering  how 
he  and  his  fellows  could  hope  to  have  their  works 
bought  and  read  in  open  competition  with  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  and  Scott,  drew  comfort  from  the  fact  that  the 
examiner  is  on  the  side  of  the  new  men.  So  long  as 
the  great  ones  of  our  literature  are  prescribed  in  school 
and  examined  upon,  so  long  will  our  new  men  have  a 
chance. 

There  is  more  than  after-dinner  logic  in  this  argu- 
ment, and  if  Robinson  Crusoe  were  pure  literature,  the 
what-does-it-matter  criticism  would  certainly  apply  to 
those  maps.  But  Robinson  Crusoe  is  not  pure  literature. 
Its  unique  attraction  for  boys,  and  its  extraordinary 
charm  for  all,  have  little  to  do  with  its  literary  merit 
or  style.  Its  fascination  lies  in  the  situation,  and  the 
wonderfully  accurate,  detailed,  and  —  to  use  a  bit  of 
the  slang  of  the  new  reviewer  —  "  convincing  "  work- 
ing out.  My  readers  are  aware  that  De  Foe  is  credited 
with  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  works.  Is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  he  confined  all  the  charm  of  his  style  to 
one  book  out  of  this  enormous  total  ?  Yet  how  many 
of  the  others  live  ?  How  many  of  us  know  even  three 


228  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  them  by  name?  How  many  have  read  even  one 
other  than  Robinson  ?  Then  take  Robinson  itself.  The 
second  part  is  notoriously  inferior  to  the  first,  and  this 
surely  will  not  be  set  down  to  style.  As  for  the  third 
part,  its  very  existence  comes  with  a  shock  of  surprise 
upon  the  great  majority  of  Crusoe's  admirers. 

Robinson  Crusoe  stands  at  one  pole  ;  a  fairy  tale  at 
the  other.  Between  those  two  poles  extends  a  regular 
series  of  more  or  less  practical  stories.  Take  up  a 
fairy  tale,  —  let  it  be  in  Perrault's  dainty  pages, — and 
your  interest  is  of  a  very  different  kind  from  that  aroused 
by  De  Foe's  story.  Here  you  are  interested  in  every 
delicate  turn  of  expression,  every  shade  of  character, 
every  whimsical  incident.  The  play  is  everything ;  the 
setting  is  nothing.  Time  and  space  are  annihilated. 
It  was  "  once  upon  a  time  "  that  the  prince  was  born  ;  it 
was  in  "a  certain  city"  that  the  princess  lived.  To 
ask  for  a  tracing  of  the  route  followed  by  Hop-o'-my- 
thumb  through  the  forest  is  no  less  ludicrous  than  to 
ask  for  a  plan  and  elevation  (with  a  transverse  section) 
of  Cinderella's  slipper.  But  in  the  Island  of  Despair 
all  this  is  changed.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  very 
heart  of  stubborn  fact.  The  island  has  latitude  and 
longitude,  tides  and  currents,  accurately  marked-out 
distances.  It  has  its  history  as  carefully  looked  to  as 
its  position.  Had  you  landed  a  little  to  the  west  of 
south,  you  would  have  found  a  "  large  post "  on  which 
were  cut  "in  capital  letters"  the  words  "I  came  on 
shore  here  on  the  30th  of  September  1659." 

We   are    therefore    not    entitled    to  belittle   plans, 
sketches,  maps,  as  elucidating  De  Foe's  meaning.     As 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  229 

a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  interest 
is  of  different  kinds  as  well  as  of  different  degrees. 
The  old  butler,  Gabriel  Betteredge,  in  Wilkie  Collins' 
novel,  The  Moonstone,  found  his  main  interest  in  the 
quasi-philosophical  religious  reflections  that  De  Foe 
found  it  expedient  to  insert  into  his  tale  in  order  to 
conciliate  the  Puritans.  Some  boys  revel  in  the  fighting 
with  the  savages,  others  in  the  coasting  voyages ;  but 
most  readers  are  charmed  by  the  ingenuity  displayed 
in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  Ethics,  Meta- 
physics, Education,  Theology  herself,  have  shown  their 
interest  in  the  Island  of  Despair,  by  quoting  Robinson 
as  illustrating  some  of  their  principles.  But  boys  are 
interested  in  a  real  island  and  a  real  man,  and  the 
points  in  which  they  are  interested  can  be  made  plainer 
by  the  use  of  a  map.  While  admitting  that  this  point 
of  view  is  at  least  as  important  as  that  of  the  purely 
literary  critic,  we  must  be  careful  not  to  carry  our 
claims  too  far*-  There  are  things  of  consequence,  and 
things  absolutely  indifferent  to  the  reader.  For  exam- 
ple, neither  the  text  of  the  story  nor  any  illustration 
of  it  that  I  have  chanced  upon  makes  it  clear  whether 
the  footprint  on  the  sand  was  a  right  foot  impression 
or  a  left.  It  is  true  that  every  picture  of  the  foot- 
print must  represent  one  or  other  ;  but  different  artists 
are  so  inconsistent,  even  with  themselves,  that  the 
truth  remains  to  me  a  perfect  mystery.  But  obviously 
this  ignorance  can  be  of  no  importance  whatever. 
Nothing  in  the  tale  is  affected  by  it.  The  place  of  the 
footprint  on  the  map,  however,  is  a  very  different 
matter.  If  we  are  to  understand  the  impression  the 


230  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

sight  produced  upon  poor  Robinson,  we  must  consider 
that  it  was  found  in  a  part  of  the  island  that  he  had  up 
till  that  moment  regarded  as  entirely  free  from  intru- 
sion by  the  savages.  One  finds  considerable  difference 
of  opinion  among  the  map-drawers  on  this  point.  The 
footprint  wanders  pretty  much  all  over  the  island. 
But  those  who  have  not  placed  it  between  the  bower 
and  the  boat  have  obviously  misplaced  it.  One  or  two, 
with  an  excess  of  exactness,  have  fallen  into  another 
blunder.  They  have  carefully  indicated  the  high  and 
the  low  water  mark,  and  have  placed  the  footprint 
exactly  between  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  foot- 
print must  have  been  made  somewhere  above  high- 
water  mark ;  for  the  impression  remained  several  days 
after  Robinson  had  first  observed  it,  which  would  not 
have  been  the  case  had  it  been  subjected  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  waves.1 

The  maps,  indeed,  furnish  an  excellent  example  of 
that  thinking  in  block  which  is  much  more  character- 
istic of  immature  intelligence  than  teachers  in  par- 
ticular are  apt  to  believe.  My  own  experience  is 
borne  out  by  that  of  others  who  have  had  greater 
opportunities  of  observing  the  peculiar  phenomenon 
that  I  wish  to  speak  of.  Boys  of  the  half-time  stamp 
who  are  forced  to  learn  reading,  in  at  least  a  mechani- 
cal way,  before  they  are  set  free  for  the  more  congenial 
work  of  the  factory,  very  readily  forget  the  art  they 
have  acquired.  But  the  power  of  reading  does  not 
altogether  die.  Boys  of  this  class  who  afterwards 

1  A  curious  misconception  is  betrayed  in  several  cases  by  naming 
the  mark  on  the  map  Friday"1 's  footprint. 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  231 

find  it  of  interest  to  discover  which  side  has  won  this 
or  that  cup,  can  usually  make  out  the  general  sense 
of  a  passage  which  they  could  not  read  in  detail,  though 
their  lives  depended  on  the  success  of  their  attempt. 
What  is  clearly  demonstrable  among  those  wholly 
unlettered  young  men  prevails  to  some  extent  among 
people  of  a  much  higher  intellectual  range.  Our  first 
perusal  of  a  stiff  philosophical  treatise  leaves  us  with 
a  general  impression  of  what  the  author  is  driving  at, 
but  it  takes  many  readings  before  we  can  follow  his 
meaning  in  detail.  So  in  learning  a  new  language  we 
sometimes  read  a  story,  as  we  say,  for  the  sake  of  the 
story.  In  such  a  case  we  miss  point  after  point  in  the 
narrative  from  not  knowing  this  word  or  that,  yet  we 
carry  away  a  general  idea  of  the  plot  and  the  leading 
incidents  of  the  story.  This  is  what  happens  to  those 
who  read  Robinson  Crusoe  without  the  aid  of  a  map. 

To  those  who  still  maintain  that  they  would  rather 
read  the  book  comfortably  in  this  incomplete  way  than 
understand  it  more  fully  and  become  prigs  in  the 
process,  it  may  be  comforting  to  know  that  recent 
writers  on  Animal  Psychology  are  convinced  that  the 
essential  difference  between  the  thoughts  of  a  man 
and  a  brute  is  that  the  brute  thinks  in  pictures,  while 
the  man  analyzes  the  pictures  into  their  elements.1 

This  creation  of  an  island  that  never  existed  is 
particularly  useful  in  illustrating  the  creation  of  our 
ideas  in  general  of  the  outer  world.  Millions  of  people 
have  an  idea  of  Broadway,  yet  no  two  of  those  ideas  are 

1  Cf.  Lloyd  Morgan,  Comparative  Psychology,  Chaps.  XIV.  and 
XVI. 


232  THE   HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

exactly  alike.  Still  they  are  all  like  Broadway,  and 
if  one  could  photograph  the  impression  in  any  mind,  all 
the  other  minds  would  recognize  the  picture  as  that  of 
Broadway.  The  fact  is  that  while  our  mental  im- 
pressions of  a  given  object  are  continually  changing, 
they  always  correspond  with  each  other,  and  to  the 
given  reality.  Now  all  the  best  of  those  maps  corre- 
spond to  each  other  in  certain  respects  ;  why,  then,  do 
they  differ  so  widely  from  each  other  ?  The  answer  is 
that  the  fixed  points,  the  points  of  correspondence,  are 
fewer  in  this  case  than  when  a  real  object  is  dealt  with. 
From  the  text  we  fix  the  relative  positions  of  certain 
points  in  the  coast-line  of  the  island,  but  the  coast-line 
itself  may  be  filled  in  with  perfect  independence  so 
long  as  certain  conditions  are  attended  to.  Even  in 
filling  up  the  outline  of  the  map  of  the  United  States,  a 
schoolboy  allows  himself  a  large  amount  of  freedom 
in  the  greater  or  smaller  number  of  undulations  he 
supplies.  But  in  this  case  he  may  throw  out  a  whole 
peninsula  or  carve  out  a  whole  gulf  as  the  fancy  takes 
him,  and  yet  no  one  can  object.  All  the  critic  is 
entitled  to  ask .  is  :  "  Does  this  map  contradict  any 
of  the  statements  made  in  the  text  ?  "  A  hundred 
maps  characteristically  different  from  each  other  may 
yet  give  a  completely  satisfactory  answer  to  this 
question. 

With  such  a  variety  of  interpretations,  can  it  be 
maintained  that  De  Foe  has  succeeded  in  expressing 
his  idea  of  the  island?  Leaving  out  of  account  the 
large  number  of  maps  that  differ  from  the  truth  as 
found  in  the  text  merely  on  account  of  the  inability  of 


GRAPHIC    HYPOTHESES  233 

the  competitors  to  understand  it,  and  considering  only 
those  maps  which  fulfil  all  De  Foe's  conditions  so  far 
as  this  has  been  attempted,  we  still  find  one  idea  of  the 
island  in  De  Foe's  mind,  and  another  in  that  of  the  author 
of  each  of  those  fairly  successful  maps.  This  raises  the 
further  question  :  Is  it  possible  to  write  a  story  like 
this  without  a  clear  concrete  background?  In  other 
words,  had  De  Foe  a  clear  and  so  far  complete  picture 
before  his  mind  as  he  wrote?  The  answer  must  be 
that  he  had.  No  doubt  a  story  of  this  kind  may  be 
written  as  a  series  of  character  sketches  on  a  nebulous 
background.  The  thing  is  done  every  day.  Probably 
a  good  half  of  the  six  novels  that  every  week-day  now 
brings  forth  in  England,  owe  their  early  death  to  their 
failure  to  express  what  has  never  been  brought  to  clear 
consciousness  in  the  minds  of  the  writers. 

This  question  must  not  be  obscured  by  any  confusion 
between  a  clear  and  an  accurate  mental  picture.  We 
have  already  seen  that  De  Foe  makes  several  blunders, 
which  the  careful  use  of  a  chart  would  have  rendered 
impossible.  We  have  further  proof  that  his  conception 
of  the  island  was  very  imperfect  in  its  details.  In  that 
dreary  third  part  which  labours  under  the  depressing 
name  of  "The  Serious  Reflections,  during  the  Life 
and  surprising  adventures  of  Robinson  Crusoe  :  with 
his  Vision  of  the  Angelick  World,"  and  which  was 
"  Printed  for  W.  Taylor  at  the  Ship  and  Black  Swan  in 
Paternoster  Row,  1720,"  De  Foe  seems  to  feel  the  want 
of  a  graphic  representation  of  the  island.  In  this 
work,  accordingly,  we  find  a  remarkable  combination 
of  a  picture  and  a  map.  We,  of  course,  do  not  know 


234  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

how  far  De  Foe  is  personally  responsible  for  the  execu- 
tion of  this  map  ;  but  it  was  no  doubt  produced  under 
his  direction,  and  with  the  benefit  of  his  criticism.  It 
consists  of  a  sort  of  bird's-eye  view  of  the  island,  indi- 
cating the  various  natural  features,  and  the  surrounding 
sea.  There  are*  houses  and  huts  scattered  about  the 
place,  rivalling,  and  in  many  cases  even  exceeding,  the 
hills  in  magnitude.  Wherever  there  is  a  space  free 
from  hills,  huts,  and  trees,  the  artist  has  thrown  in  a 
group  of  dancing  or  fighting  savages.  In  the  fore- 
ground Crusoe  and  some  companions  tower  majestically 
as  high  as  a  corrupt  perspective  will  permit,  above  the 
masts  of  a  vessel  at  anchor  in  the  offing.  A  touch  of 
pathos  is  cunningly  introduced  by  a  representation,  in 
the  centre  of  the  island,  of  the  bower,  in  the  midst  of 
which  is  seen  a  clumsy  bird  of  about  the  size  of  a  tree 
with  a  pitiful  legend  coming  out  of  its  mouth  :  "  Poor 
Robin  Cruso." 

Such  a  picture,  inaccurate  if  you  please,  but  concrete 
and  clear,  must  have  figured  itself  in  De  Foe's  mind. 
His  description  may  only  bring  out  parts  of  it  —  a  not 
uncommon  phenomenon  in  reproducing  mental  im- 
agery.1 It  is  none  the  less  complete.  Had  Mr.  Galton 
given  the  details  of  the  occupations  of  the  "  100  adult 
men,  of  whom  19  are  fellows  of  the  Royal  Society, 
mostly  of  high  repute,  and  at  least  twice,  and  I  think 
I  may  say  three  times,  as  many  more  persons  of  dis- 
tinction in  various  kinds  of  intellectual  work,"2  it  is 
almost  certain  that  the  novelists  would  be  found  to 

1  Francis  Galton,  Human  Faculty  and  its  Development,  pp.  94,  95. 
a  Ibid.,  p.  88. 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  235 

hold  a  commanding  position  among  those  whose  power 
of  mental  imagery  is  very  high.  De  Foe  would  em- 
phatically have  held  a  place  not  very  far  from  the  top. 
George  Meredith,  and  writers  of  his  class,  may  make 
up  their  conversations  between  mere  minds  without  any 
mental  imagery  at  all ;  De  Foe  always  wrote  his  tales 
as  if  he  were  sitting  in  the  pit  of  a  theatre,  and  de- 
scribing what  he  saw  passing  on  the  stage. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  fashionable  just  now  in  Psy- 
chology to  speak  of  mental  states  as  forming  a  continuum 
in  which  all  our  ideas  find  a  rational  place,  according 
to  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  whole.  Pro- 
fessor Ward1  contrasts  the  place  an  impression  holds 
in  this  continuum  with  that  held  by  a  mere  idea.  His 
illustration  is  peculiarly  apt.  The  impression  remains 
permanently  fixed  for  our  examination  ;  if  we  examine 
one  part  now,  and  then  return  to  it,  we  find  that  it  has 
not  changed  materially  in  the  interval.  Each  part 
exists  independently  of  its  relation  to  the  whole.  A 
mental  image,  on  the  other  hand,  he  compares  to  one 
of  those  designs  worked  out  in  gas  that  we  see  at  some 
of  our  illuminations.  As  the  wind  sweeps  over  them, 
now  one  part  and  now  another  disappears  altogether, 
and  the  darker  the  one  part  becomes,  the  brighter  the 
others.  Such  an  image  of  the  island  we  may  suppose 
to  have  hovered  before  the  eyes  of  De  Foe.  As  he 
wrote  of  the  castle,  a  bright  picture  of  that  stronghold 
arose  in  his  mind,  and  enabled  him  to  write  of  it  as  if 
he  were  actually  looking  at  it.  By  and  by  it  was  the 
turn  of  the  bower,  or  the  little  harbour  for  his  boat. 
1  Art.  "Psychology,"  Enc.  Brit. 


236  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

But  while  each  had  its  turn  of  greater  prominence,  the 
whole  notion  of  the  island  remained  a  continuum. 
Each  part  was  always  to  some  extent  correlated  to 
the  rest.  The  cause  of  whatever  errors  may  appear  in 
the  description  is  to  be  found  in  the  comparative 
feebleness  of  this  supervising  and  correlating  general 
conception  of  the  island.  What  was  the  source  of  De 
Foe's  charm  was  also  the  source  of  the  danger  he  un- 
doubtedly ran  of  sacrificing  the  whole  to  the  part. 

Assuming  that  De  Foe  has  a  very  vivid  picture  in 
his  mind  of  each  of  the  scenes  he  describes,  how  far 
has  he  been  successful  in  expressing  this  picture  in 
words?  If  we  are  to  judge  by  the  interpretation  sup- 
plied by  the  various  artists  who  have  illustrated  the 
book,  his  success  must  be  regarded  as  very  moderate. 
Crusoe  omits  to  state  what  sort  of  dog  it  was  that  he 
somewhat  unkindly  included  among  his  list  of  "  things 
of  less  value."  The  result  is  that  artists  revel  in  dogs 
of  all  species.  But,  for  one  inaccuracy  for  which  De 
Foe  is  responsible,  there  are  a  score  to  be  charged 
entirely  to  the  artist.  In  an  edition  published  in  1853, 
for  example,  we  have  the  description  of  Crusoe's  mak- 
ing spatterdashes  to  himself  illustrated  by  a  picture  of 
Robinson  in  his  bare  feet.  In  an  edition  by  T.  Cadell 
and  W.  Davies  (Strand,  1820),  which  proudly  proclaims 
itself  to  be  "embellished  by  engravings  by  Thomas 
Stothard,  Esq.,  R.A.,"  we  find  Crusoe's  rough-and- 
ready  tent  represented  as  a  regular  marquee  that  might 
have  kept  company  with  lawn-tennis.  Generally 
speaking,  Crusoe  is  drawn  as  a  very  refined  man  who 
has  come  down  in  the  world,  rather  than  the  rough 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  237 

young  fellow  he  is  in  the  story  represented  to  be.  Even 
George  Cruikshank  cannot  be  trusted  to  reproduce 
exactly  what  his  author  describes.  On  page  78  of  the 
original  edition  we  find  the  following  passage,  referring 
to  Crusoe's  excavations  in  his  cave :  "  I  worked  side- 
ways to  the  Right  Hand  into  the  Rock,  then  turning  to 
the  right  again  worked  quite  out,  and  made  me  a  Door 
to  come  out  on  the  Outside  of  my  pale  or  fortification." 
Cruikshank's  illustration  of  this  represents  the  door  in 
question  on  the  left  hand  of  the  pale  or  fortification. 
For  this,  manifestly,  and  for  Mrs.  Grundy's  influence 
on  the  attire  of  the  man  Friday,  De  Foe  cannot  be  held 
responsible. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  process  of  commu- 
nicating an  idea  from  one  mind  to  another  is  not  a 
single  process,  but  a  double  one.  The  idea  must  be 
dissolved,  as  it  were,  in  words,  and  then  again  crystal- 
lized out  in  the  new  mind.1  To  put  it  otherwise,  the 
concrete  of  one  mind  must  be  reduced  to  its  abstract 
terms,  and  then  rebuilt  into  the  concrete  of  the  new 
mind.  The  differences  in  the  interpretation  of  De 
Foe's  words  are  due  to  the  greater  or  less  degree  of 
abstractness  to  which  these  words  have  attained  in  the 
minds  of  different  readers.  If  the  words  have  reached 
a  high  degree  of  abstraction,  there  is  every  chance  that 

1  The  process,  in  fact,  is  a  simple  example  of  the  way  in  which 
Paulhan  conceives  man  to  react  on  his  environment.  "A  mon  point 
de  vue,  1'homme  est  un  appareil  de  syste"inatisation  qui  re§oit  les  im- 
pressions du  monde  exte"rieur,  les  decompose,  fait  avec  les  e'le'ments  de 
nouvelles  syntheses  et  finalement  reagit  de  maniere  a  augmenter  la 
finalite"  en  lui-meme,  dans  la  socie'te',  et  me"me  dans  le  monde  exte"- 
rieur."  —  L'Activite  Mentale,  p.  88, 


238 


THE    HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 


they  will  reproduce  the  ideas  in  the  mind  of  the  author 
with  the  minimum  of  distortion  of  the  author's  f  unda- 


mental  meaning.  If  each  word  is  burdened  with  a 
series  of  associations,  there  is  a  strong  probability  that 
the  resulting  idea  will  be  unduly  coloured  by  the 


•in 


•^•tei1!  ]-i 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  239 

individuality  of  the  reader's  mind.  This  brings  us  to 
the  hypotheses  on  which  those  maps  have  been  con- 
structed. To  begin  with,  it  is  evident  that  many  of 
them  were  begun  on  a  preconceived  hypothesis  which 
owed  nothing  to  a  careful  examination  of  the  facts  to 
be  found  in  the  text.  These  facts  had  to  find  a  place 
on  the  map  no  doubt,  but  a  place  had  to  be  found  for 
them  in  a  system  of  things  previously  determined. 
They  had  no  share  in  fixing  that  system. 

The  face  map  (No.  1)  is  very  obviously  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  fit  in  all  the  facts  into  a  fanciful  order  of 
things  which  symbolizes,  without  representing,  the  true 
state  of  affairs.  The  map  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  an 
unconscious  satire  on  much  of  the  hypothesis-making 
in  higher  philosophical  circles.  It  is  a  useful  diagram 
of  one  of  the  idols  of  the  theatre. 

Map  No.  2  is  drawn  on  a  peculiarly  streaked  and 
coloured  paper  which  makes  not  a  bad  imitation  of 
bark.  The  drawing  and  printing  are  of  the  roughest 
possible  description.  The  whole  production  conveys 
the  impression  that  there  is  a  deliberate  desire  to  repre- 
sent such  a  rough  draught  as  Robinson  himself  might 
have  made  with  the  limited  apparatus  at  his  disposal 
after  his  return,  or  more  probably  on  shipboard  on  his 
way  home.  For  the  draughtsman  is  evidently  working 
under  the  influence  of  the  directions,  where  he  was  told 
to  make  such  a  map  as  Crusoe  "  might  have  showed  to 
his  friends  after  he  came  home."  Dominated  by  this 
idea,  the  boy  has  modified  all  the  rest  to  suit,  and  who 
shall  say  that  he  has  not  attained  a  considerable  degree 
of  success  ? 


240  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

Still  another  form  of  preconception  arises  from  the 
prominence  in  the  minds  of  the  competitors  of  some 
familiar  island  as  represented  on  the  school  map. 
Many  minds  in  conceiving  an  island  do  not  get  beyond 
the  pictorial  stage ;  do  not,  indeed,  reach  even  to  the 
receptual  stage ;  but  actually  think  all  islands  under 
some  standard  concrete  form.  The  Isle  of  Wight  and 
the  Isle  of  Man  appear  to  be  the  two  most  powerful  in 
determining  the  shape  of  such  maps  as  do  not  give 


CREEK 


MAP  3. 


traces  of  careful  preparation  from  the  text.  Two  maps 
are  of  special  interest  as  being  obviously  modelled  on 
Trinidad.  If  this  is  done  deliberately,  it  indicates  a 
very  creditable  insight  into  the  meaning  of  the  method 
of  analogy.  Crusoe's  Island  itself  has,  in  some  minds, 
a  shape  of  its  own,  entirely  independent  of  the  facts  to 
be  elicited  from  the  text.  The  accompanying  curious 
sketch  (Map  No.  3)  was  drawn  for  me  with  the  utmost 
readiness  by  a  clever  and  remarkably  well-read  friend, 
who  assured  me  that  this  exactly  represented  what  he 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  241 

had  always  regarded  as  the  Robinson  Crusoe  Island. 
He  had  no  grounds  whatever  for  his  choice  of  shape, 
yet  he  felt  sorry  that  anything  should  be  done  to  de- 
prive him  of  the  belief  he  had  in  his  own  island. 

Among  the  more  general  grounds  that  determined 
the  preconception  on  which  a  map  was  founded,  are  the 
desire  to  make  a  pretty  map,  and  the  influence  of  the 
kind  of  map  to  which  the  competitor  has  been  accus- 
tomed. The  use  of  colours,  borders,  compass-dials,  are 
the  result  of  the  former  influence  ;  the  special  form 
of  contour  maps,  charts,  and  bird's-eye-view  pictorial 
maps  are  due  to  the  latter. 

Limiting  ourselves  to  the  effects  of  the  information 
supplied  by  the  text  of  the  story,  we  may  easily  divide 
all  of  the  maps  into  two  classes :  those  which  have  a 
peninsula  in  the  southeast  corner,  and  those  which  have 
not.  The  latter,  a  sufficiently  large  class,  represent 
the  work  of  those  who  did  not  read  the  second  part, 
where  the  description  of  this  peninsula  occurs.  Of  the 
former  class  there  are,  again,  two  divisions,  according  as 
the  first  or  second  part  of  the  story  has  had  the  greater 
influence.  In  most  cases  the  first  part  has  been  the 
dominant  one,  which  for  obvious  reasons  is  natural. 
The  competitors  who  lay  more  stress  on  the  second 
part  indicate  this  by  the  division  of  the  whole  island 
into  provinces  after  the  manner  of  a  regular  political 
map  (No.  4),  and  by  labelling  them  as  belonging  to 
the  Spaniards,  the  Indians,  and  the  Villainous  English- 
men respectively. 

Of  the  three  processes,  —  collecting  the  facts,  collat- 
ing them  and  forming  an  explanatory  hypothesis,  re- 


242  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

producing  the  facts  according  to  this  hypothesis, — it  is 
naturally  the  middle  one  that  gives  most  trouble.  The 
hypothesis  is  often  wildly  made  ;  but  once  having  made 
a  hypothesis,  the  competitors  spare  no  pains  in  trying 
to  lit  in  their  facts.  For  example,  many  maps  show 
the  following  peculiarity.  Every  measurement  that  is 
positively  given  in  the  text  is  reproduced  exactly,  but 
any  measurement  or  relation  that  can  only  be  inferred 
from  a  comparison  of  two  separate  passages  is  neg- 
lected. In  other  words,  the  island  is  represented  in 
the  competitor's  mind  by  a  series  of  what  Mr.  Stout 
would  call  "  floating  "  systems  of  ideas,  each  perfectly 
consistent  within  itself,  but  which  must  be  modified  by 
fighting  its  way  into  the  general  system  to  which  it 
belongs. 

The  "  first-prize "  map  (No.  5)  is  fortunately  good 
enough  to  illustrate  the  result  of  the  successful  struggle 
of  those  floating  systems  to  find  their  true  place  in  the 
containing  system.  Almost  without  exception,  every 
measurement  given  in  the  text  is  accurately  reproduced 
on  this  map.  Compare,  for  example,  the  distances  of  the 
various  ships  from  the  shore,  the  distance  from  the  castle 
to  the  watch-hill,  the  length  of  the  tongue  of  land  and 
its  breadth,  the  bower  half-way  between  the  castle  and 
the  boat,  the  distance  to  the  various  rocks  that  deflected 
the  currents.  The  only  point  where  there  is  a  notice- 
able discrepancy  is  in  the  distance  of  the  north  current, 
which  is  greater  than  the  league  that  Robinson  gives 
it,  and  the  distance  between  the  north  and  south  track 
of  the  boat.  This  distance  the  book  states  to  be  two 
leagues.  In  the  map  it  is  more.  This  latter  disc  rep- 


GRAPHIC   HYPOTHESES  245 

ancy  would  probably  be  avoided  by  placing  the  tongue 
of  land  given  to  the  savages  somewhat  farther  south. 
This  is  desirable  on  other  grounds,  as  in  its  present 
position  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  "  on  the  southeast 
corner  of  the  island." 

With  these  trifling  exceptions,  the  map  co-ordinates 
all  the  systems,  and  produces  a  whole  which  has  the 
additional  advantage  of  eliminating  the  draughtsman 
altogether.  The  map  is  purely  abstract.  Everything 
is  represented  merely  in  terms  of  extension.  De  Foe's 
ideas  have  received  the  minimum  amount  of  altera- 
tion in  passing  through  the  mind  of  the  map-drawer. 
Where  those  ideas  are  self-contradictory,  the  draughts- 
man chooses  the  alternative  that  causes  least  disar- 
rangement of  the  general  plan  of  the  island. 

So  far  we  have  been  regarding  this  island  under  only 
one  aspect,  —  its  extension.  Suppose  the  wider  prob- 
lem were  set,  to  write  a  full  account  of  the  island  in  all 
respects,  we  might  at  first  sight  think  that  very  little 
could  be  added  beyond  a  few  general  remarks,  such  as 
one  finds  about  the  beginning  of  a  certain  class  of 
novel.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  enough  data  are  given 
to  determine  very  minutely  every  detail.  To  begin 
with,  poor  De  Foe  would  very  soon  have  to  yield  his 
authority  to  better  men.  No  doubt  he  lays  down  the 
conditions  to  the  problem,  but  it  does  not  follow  that 
he  understands  all  that  each  condition  implies.  The 
mere  longitude  and  latitude  of  the  island  establish  a 
great  crowd  of  circumstances  unknown  to  De  Foe. 
The  fact  that  there  was  an  earthquake  opens  up  lines 
of  limitations  that  only  geological  specialists  can  work 


246  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

out,  even  imperfectly.  The  plants  that  Robinson  grew, 
the  animals  that  he  shot,  all  bring  their  limitations.  It 
is  the  old  story.  To  do  anything  well  enough  to  please 
a  German  philosopher,  one  must  exhaust  the  universe. 
One  must  sit  with  Lotze  in  the  spider-web  of  phenom- 
ena supplied  by  De  Foe,  and  seek  if  haply  by  some 
means  or  other  one  may  reach  the  centre,  whence  all 
things  can  be  seen  in  their  true  relations.  There  is  no 
royal  road  to  the  centre.  Each  must  find  a  way  for 
himself,  some  fairly  direct,  most  very  crooked  indeed, 
everything  depending  on  the  number  and  nature  of  the 
apperception  masses.  In  this  search  for  fragments  of 
truth,  temporary  resting-places  for  general  views,  the 
schoolmaster  has  to  play  the  part  of  spider.  A  benevo- 
lent spider,  be  it  understood,  whose  business  is  not  to 
make  plain  the  already  geometrically  clear  lines  of  the 
web,  but  to  see  that  guiding  apperception  masses  are 
so  arranged  that  they  shall  lead  ultimately  to  the 
centre,  by  the  way,  however  crooked  it  may  seem,  that 
is  best  for  each  seeker. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF   INTEREST 

"  A  MAN  who  trains  monkeys  to  act  in  plays,  used  to 
purchase  common  kinds  from  the  Zoological  Society,  at 
the  price  of  £5  for  each  ;  but  he  offered  to  give  double 
the  price,  if  he  might  keep  three  or  four  of  them  for 
a  few  days  in  order  to  select  one.  When  asked  how 
he  could  possibly  learn  so  soon  whether  a  particular 
monkey  would  turn  out  a  good  actor,  he  answered  that 
it  all  depended  on  their  power  of  attention.  If  when 
he  was  talking  and  explaining  anything  to  a  monkey 
its  attention  was  easily  distracted,  as  by  a  fly  on  the 
wall,  or  other  trifling  object,  the  case  was  hopeless.  If 
he  tried  by  punishment  to  make  an  inattentive  monkey 
act,  it  turned  sulky.  On  the  other  hand,  a  monkey 
which  carefully  attended  to  him  could  always  be 
trained."1 

This  incident  is  full  of  instruction  for  teachers. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  human  nature  in  monkeys. 
Unfortunately,  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  apply  the 
surface  moral.  We  cannot  return  the  three  or  four 
inattentive  monkeys,  and  keep  the  good  little  one  who 
pays  no  attention  to  the  passing  flies.  We  must  keep 
them  all  and  by  some  means  or  other  make  them  atten- 
tive. The  method  that  made  the  monkeys  sulky  is 

1  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  second  edition,  p.  73. 
247 


248  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  popular  one  with  teachers ;  but  the  monkey  trainer 
was  right  in  discarding  it. 

Attention  has  been  described  as  an  act  of  mental 

• 

prehension.  As  an  animal  seizes  its  food  with  bill  or 
claw  and  holds  it  in  a  convenient  position  till  the  ex- 
ternal organs  of  the  alimentary  system  have  worked 
their  will  upon  it,  so  the  mind  in  the  act  of  attention 
seizes  some  idea  and  brings  it  within  the  reach  of  the 
apperception  masses,  and  holds  it  there  till  these  have 
had  a  chance  of  either  assimilating  or  rejecting  it. 
Dropping  all  figures,  the  function  of  attention  is  to 
single  out  some  part  of  the  presented  content  for 
special  treatment  by  the  soul. 

It  is  obviously  of  the  first  importance  for  the  teacher 
to  understand  how  attention  works.  But  when  he 
turns  to  his  text-books,  he  gets  not  an  explanation  of 
the  mechanism  of  attention,  but  a  classification.  He  is 
told  that  attention  is  either  voluntary  or  involuntary, 
but  it  is  only  in  recent  books  that  any  consideration  is 
given  to  involuntary  attention.  Hitherto  it  has  been 
regarded  as  of  trifling  importance,  as  something  be- 
longing to  man's  lower  nature.  Its  position  has  greatly 
improved  of  late. 

The  classification  has  done  this  at  least  :  it  has  in- 
troduced a  new  element  into  the  problem.  We  have 
now  the  soul,  the  object  of  attention,  the  act  of  atten- 
tion, and  the  will  that  in  some  cases,  at  least,  seems  to 
direct  the  attention.  At  this  moment,  I  can,  if  I 
choose,  withdraw  all  my  mental  force  from  almost 
everything  else  and  centre  it  on,  say,  the  Carboniferous 
Period.  This  is  what  is  known  as  voluntary  attention. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  249 

But  suppose  that  while  I  am  in  the  act  of  withdraw- 
ing all  my  mental  force  from  my  paper,  my  pen,  my 
lamp,  in  order  to  fix  it  upon  what  I  can  remember  of 
Lyell  and  Dana  and  Geikie,  a  knock  comes  to  my  study 
door,  my  mental  force  seems  to  dissipate  itself  sud- 
denly only  to  concentrate  once  more,  this  time  on  the 
annoyance  of  the  interruption.  This  is  what  usually 
passes  for  involuntary  attention. 

Observe,  it  is  not  the  door  that  I  attend  to  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  the  annoyance,  and  in  all  cases  of  invol- 
untary attention  this  is  true  :  we  do  not  attend  for  the 
sake  of  the  object  itself,  but  because  of  some  emotional 
accompaniment.1  This  emotional  element  rouses  our 
interest  in  the  object  with  which  it  is  connected.  It 
may  be  pleasant,  as  in  the  case  of  a  child  interested  in 
the  piece  of  candy  in  a  shop  window,  or  it  may  be  pain- 
ful, as  in  the  case  of  the  same  child  at  a  later  stage  at 
the  dentist's.  In  both  cases  attention  naturally  fol- 
lows interest :  the  child  eagerly  attends  to  the  candy 
in  the  window,  but  no  less  eagerly  to  the  forceps  in  the 
dentist's  hand.  Interest  may  be  said  to  hold  the  same 
relation  to  involuntary  attention,  that  the  will  holds  to 

1  "The  assumption  that  attention  depends  on  pleasure-pain  seems 
to  have  no  sufficient  basis.  The  relation  is  not  one  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  coincidence  of  interest  and  attention  is  simply  due  to  the  fact 
that  intei-est  as  actually  felt  at  any  moment  is  nothing  but  attention 
itself  considered  in  its  hedonic  aspect.  .  .  .  Stumpf,  indeed,  goes  too 
far  when  he  says  'attention  is  identical  with  interest,'  but  the  distinc- 
tion between  them  is  simply  that  the  word  interest  carries  with  it  a  ref- 
erence to  something  else  as  well  as  to  attention  as  a  mode  of  mental 
activity  ;  this  something  else  is  the  pleasure-pain  tone  of  the  attention 
process,"  —  G.  F,  STOUT,  Analytical  Psychology,  Vol.  L,  pp.  224,  225. 


250  THE  HBRBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

voluntary.  In  involuntary  attention  the  object  plays 
the  leading  part ;  in  voluntary  attention  the  soul.  Yet 
this  distinction  must  not  be  pushed  too  far. 

The  same  forces  are  at  work  in  both  cases,  though  in 
different  proportions.  In  writing  the  paragraph  on  vol- 
untary attention,  I  paused  for  a  moment  after  setting 
down  the  words  "centre  it  on,  say,"  and  reflected  — 
"  well,  —  which  out-of-the-way  idea  shall  I  select  for 
special  attention  ? "  and  out  of  nowhere  in  particular 
floated  the  Carboniferous  Period.  At  first  sight  it  ap- 
pears that  the  idea  came  at  the  call  of  my  will  out  of 
that  great  unconscious  world  with  which  we  are  all 
surrounded.  In  point  of  fact,  it  came  out  of  the  coal- 
box.  For  no  sooner  did  I  set  myself  to  discover  why  I 
had  thought  of  the  Carboniferous  Period  in  preference 
to  anything  else,  than  I  remembered  that  a  few  minutes 
before  I  had  replenished  the  study  fire.  This  circum- 
stance had  so  increased  the  presentative  activity  of  the 
idea  of  the  Carboniferous  Period,  as  to  give  it  a  great 
advantage  in  the  competition  for  admission  into  con- 
sciousness. The  will  is  obviously  not  alone  responsi- 
ble for  the  attention  in  this  case. 

Return  now  to  the  knock  at  the  door.  Here  the  will 
seems  to  be  completely  overridden.  It  wished  to  at- 
tend to  the  Carboniferous  Period,  and  a  beggarly 
knock  at  the  door  transferred  the  attention  from  the 
time  of  the  first  beetles  to  the  time  of  house-maids  and 
the  penny-post.  Yet,  after  all,  the  house-maid  is  no 
better  than  the  coal-box.  Something  has  for  the  time 
given  her  a  greater  power  of  attracting  the  attention 
than  the  other  objects  of  my  surroundings  have.  That 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF   INTEREST  251 

is  all.  If  I  had  really  made  up  my  mind  to  attend  to 
the  Carboniferous  Period,  I  could  have  disregarded  her 
knock,  or  even  not  have  heard  it  at  all.  If  I  drop  the 
Carboniferous  Period  because  the  maid  enters  with  a 
letter,  it  is  because  I  am  more  interested  in  my  letter 
than  in  Geology. 

Thus,  while  there  is  a  sufficiently  clear  "working" 
distinction  between  voluntary  and  involuntary  atten- 
tion, they  cannot  be  absolutely  marked  off  one  from 
the  other.  There  is  a  regular  series  from  the  almost 
purely  will-less  attention  which  a  young  child  gives  to 
a  bright  light,  up  to  the  intense  attention  that  a  con- 
scientious poet  gives  to  an  uninteresting  arithmetical 
calculation  by  sheer  will-power,  a  series  in  any  one  of 
the  terms  of  which  will  and  interest  are  to  be  found  in 
inverse  ratio.  In  any  given  state  of  attention  the  less 
the  interest,  the  greater  the  amount  of  will-power  neces- 
sary to  maintain  h\.  One  of  the  main  aims  of  education 
is  to  enable  the  pupil  to  pass  from  the  purely  involun- 
tary to  the  purely  voluntary  forms  of  attention.  Yet 
so  peculiarly  close  and  intricate  are  the  relations  of 
those  two  forms  of  attention  that,  in  a  certain  sense, 
the  converse  is  true,  and  the  function  of  education  may 
be  regarded  as  the  creation  of  involuntary  attention 
through  voluntary  attention.  By  deliberately  concen- 
trating our  attention  upon  a  certain  class  of  subjects, 
we  may  build  up  such  a  powerful  apperception  mass 
that  any  fact  connected  with  that  mass  will  at  once  at- 
tract our  attention  quite  irrespective  of  our  will.  This 
produces  an  alertness  to  certain  •  classes  of  facts  that 
may  be  of  the  utmost  service  in  our  experience,  and 


252  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

therefore  may  be  legitimately  held  up  as  one  of  the 
aims  of  education. 

Accepting  the  classification  into  voluntary  and  in- 
voluntary, we  have  still  to  face  the  problem  of  what 
attention  really  is.  Speaking  broadly,  it  may  be  de- 
scribed as  the  concentration  of  mental  energy  on  a 
given  object.  The  total  available  amount  of  such 
energy  at  any  moment  may  be  diffused  throughout  the 
whole  mind,  or  may  be  brought  to  a  focus  on  a  special 
point.  Some  psychologists  maintain  that  we  are  always 
either  attending  to  something,  or  passing  from  attend- 
ing to  one  thing  in  order  to  begin  attending  to  another. 
We  are  always  in  a  state  of  attention.  Others  main- 
tain that  attention  is  not  a  natural  but  an  acquired 
habit,  like  living  in  houses  or  using  the  tooth-brush. 
Ribot,1  for  example,  holds  that  we  exist  in  a  sort  of 
rhythmic  series  of  states  of  attention  and  non-atten- 
tion, even  when  we  think  that  we  are,  attending  all  the 
time.  To  a  large  extent  those  discussions  are  limited 
to  voluntary  attention,  and  only  so  far  as  they  are  thus 
limited  do  they  concern  us.  The  rhythm  of  involun- 
tary attention  is  really  a  matter  for  the  physiologist. 

Professor  Morgan's  wave  figure  may  help  us  to 
understand  this  vexed  question  of  attention.  A  man 
off  on  a  holiday,  with  a  good  conscience  and  a  fat  purse, 
lies  on  his  back  in  the  sun  with  his  hat  over  his  eyes. 
Is  he  in  a  state  of  attention  ?  The  answer  must  be  that 
he  is ;  for  so  long  as  he  is  not  asleep,  the  waves  of  his 
consciousness  must  roll  on,  and  every  wave  must  have 
a  crest  of  some  sort.  That  crest  indicates  the  focal 
1  Ribot,  Psychology  of  Attention,  Chap.  II.  1. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  253 

elements  of  the  consciousness  at  that  moment ;  in  other 
words,  the  elements  to  which  the  attention  is  directed. 
But  in  figuring  his  waves,  Professor  Morgan  has  not 
in  any  way  committed  himself  as  to  their  shape.  The 
waves  of  consciousness  may  vary  as  greatly  as  those  of 
the  sea.  Our  holiday  man's  wave  is  a  long,  rolling 
wave  with  a  broad,  unbroken  crest.  It  indicates  a 
great  mass  of  focal  elements,  none  of  which,  however, 
are  very  clearly  marked  out.  By  and  by  the  sun  sinks, 
and  our  friend  has  to  go  on ;  lazily  enough,  no  doubt, 
but  still  on.  His  waves  still  roll  long,  broad,  and 
glassy,  till  he  has  reached  his  hotel,  when  he  finds  that 
his  fat  purse  has  disappeared.  Instantly  the  waves 
change  their  character  :  they  become  high  and  rapid, 
crest  succeeding  crest  with  wonderful  speed.  Every 
possible  spot  where  that  purse  could  have  rolled  out  of 
the  pocket  has  a  wave  crest  to  itself  in  a  lightning-like 
succession.  Suddenly  a  flash  of  memory  suggests  that 
he  has  placed  the  money  at  the  bottom  of  his  knapsack, 
when  at  once  a  fearsome  billow  rears  itself  to  a  knife- 
edge,  and  keeps  itself  in  that  difficult  position  all  the 
time  that  he  is  feverishly  tearing  out  the  contents  of 
his  kit,  till  the  discovery  of  the  missing  money  sends 
down  the  wave.  All  the  time  the  man  has  been  attend- 
ing to  something  or  other  ;  but  it  is  only  to  the  latter 
part  of  that  day's  experiences  that  we  are  inclined  to 
apply  the  term  attention. 

While  voluntary  and  involuntary  attention  differ,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  mechanism  which  they  call  into  play 
is  exactly  the  same.  In  both  cases  we  have  the  con- 
centration of  mental  force  upon  a  limited  area.  This, 


254  THE    HEKBARTIAN    PSYCHOLOGY 

of  course,  means  that  force  must  be  drawn  from  cer- 
tain parts.  Attention,  as  the  psychophysicists  have  it, 
is  inhibition.  We  do  not  really  direct  our  attention 
to  this  or  that  object.  We  simply  call  it  off  from  all 
other  objects.  We  are  told  that  the  phenomena  attend- 
ing attention  are  of  three  kinds,  —  vasomotor,  respira- 
tory, and  motory  (or  motions  of  expression).  We 
cannot  here  do  more  than  touch  the  fringe  of  an  in- 
tensely interesting  discussion  at  present  going  on  as  to 
the  relation  between  emotion  and  the  expression  of  the 
emotion.  As  far  back  as  Plato,  we  find  complaints 
that  the  playing  of  the  parts  of  bad  men  has  a  tendency 
to  make  the  actors  become  bad  men.1  What  we  might 
be  inclined  to  smile  at  as  a  playful  fancy  in  the  Repub- 
lic, we  must  look  upon  with  other  eyes  when  we  find 
it  in  the  pages  of  a  psychologist  of  the  standing  of 
Mr.  W.  James. 

This  writer  is  inclined  to  reverse  the  usual  view  of 
the  causal  relation  between  emotion  and  its  expression. 
His  thesis  is  that  "  the  bodily  changes  follow  directly  the 
perception  of  the  exciting  fact,  and  that  our  feeling  of  the 
same  changes  as  they  occur  is  the  emotion.  Common  sense 
says:  'We  lose  our  fortune,  are  sorry,  and  weep.'"2 
But  Mr.  James  would  say,  we  lose  our  fortune,  we  weep, 
and  then  are  sorry.  I  am  insulted,  I  clench  my  fists  and 
contract  my  brows,  and  then  I  proceed  to  get  angry. 

"  Stated  in  this  crude  way,"  says  Mr.  James,  "  the 
hypothesis  is  pretty  sure  to  meet  with  immediate  dis- 

1  Republic,  III.  395. 

2  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  p.  449.     Every  teacher  should 
read  the  whole  of  Chap.  XXV. 


THE   DOCTKINE   OF   INTEREST  255 

belief."  Accordingly,  lie  proceeds  to  give  a  series  of 
very  cogent  arguments  in  favour  of  his  position. 
What  he  considers  the  vital  point  of  his  theory  is 
expressed  thus  :  "  If  we  fancy  some  strong  emotion,  and 
then  try  to  abstract  from  our  consciousness  of  it  all  the 
feelings  of  its  bodily  symptoms,  we  find  we  have  nothing 
left  behind,  no  mind-stuff  out  of  which  the  emotions 
can  be  constituted,  and  that  a  cold  and  neutral  state 
of  intellectual  perception  is  all  that  remains." 

It  is  beyond  the  province  of  this  book  even  to  attempt 
a  decision  on  this  matter.  Indeed,  it  may  be  asked 
what  such  physiologico-psychological  theories  have  to 
do  with  Herbartianism.  Our  only  reply  is  that  if  they 
have  little  to  do  with  Herbart,  they  have  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  the  real  work  of  teaching,  and  that  no  writer 
need  apologize  for  introducing  a  theory  the  establish- 
ment of  which  would  gladden  the  heart  of  every  one  of 
his  readers. 

For,  if  Mr.  James  is  right,  then  shall  the  practical 
teacher  at  last  get  those  definite  rules  after  which  his 
soul  longs  ;  at  last  there  will  be  something  definite 
for  the  teacher  to  do.  To  a  certain  extent  the  theory 
is  already  acted  upon.  Every  prosy  lecturer  to  the 
young  who  urges  his  dear  young  friends  to  count  ten 
before  they  reply  to  an  angry  speech,  every  clodhopper 
who  whistles  and  waves  his  stick  as  he  passes  by  the 
churchyard  at  midnight,  every  faith-healed  cripple  who 
hangs  up  his  crutch  by  some  holy  well,  is  a  practical 
supporter  of  Mr.  James.  It  has,  however,  received  a 
more  direct  illustration  in  the  actual  work  of  teaching. 
Mr.  Thring  in  his  pungent  remarks  on  the  potency  of 


256  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

attitude1  acts  upon  the  theory,  and  roundly  blames 
teachers  for  most  of  the  inattention  found  in  their 
classes.  If  a  boy  is  allowed  to  maintain  the  attitude 
of  inattention,  nothing  can  prevent  him  from  becoming 
inattentive. 

Every  act  of  attention  has  at  least  its  hedonic  aspect, 
and  to  that  extent  comes  under  the  laws  that  regulate 
emotions  and  their  expression.  In  so  far,  then,  as  one 
can  control  the  physical  expression  of  attention,  one 
can  control  attention.  Of  the  three  classes  of  phenom- 
ena marking  attention,  we  cannot  directly  regulate  our 
vasomotor  activities,  but  we  have  some  control  over 
our  respiratory  functions,  and  can  and  do  modify  them 
when  we  seek  to  attend  very  closely  to  anything.  Our 
phenomena  of  expression  are  well  within  our  control, 
so  that  we  have  the  means  of  regulating  two  out  of  the 
three  classes  of  phenomena  which'  accompany,  and  may 
cause,  attention. 

Even  those  writers  who  deny  any  causal  connection 
between  muscular  action  and  attention,  admit  that  there 
is  some  connection  between  them  by  which  the  one  aids 
the  other.  Mr.  Stout,  for  example,  says  "  muscular  ad- 
justment is  the  support  of  attention,  but  not,  strictly 
speaking,  an  integral  part  of  it."2  From  our  point  of 
view,  this  scarcely  lessens  the  enormous  importance  to 
be  attached  in  education  to  the  muscular  concomitants 
of  attention. 

Passing  now  from  the  conditions  of  attention  to  the 
actual  mechanism  as  stated  by  the  psychophysical 

1  Theory  and  Practice  of  Education,  pp.  177  ff. 

2  Analytical  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  224. 


THE   DOCTKINE   OF   INTEREST  257 

school,  we  find  the  following  description  by  Maudsley 
of  what  happens  when  we  voluntarily  direct  our  atten- 
tion towards  a  given  object.  "  What  is  accomplished 
in  such  cases  is  the  excitation  of  certain  nervous  cur- 
rents of  ideas,  and  their  maintenance  in  action  until 
they  have  called  into  consciousness,  by  radiation  of 
energy,  all  their  related  ideas,  or  as  many  of  them  as 
it  may  be  possible,  in  the  then  condition  of  the  brain, 
to  stimulate  into  action.  It  would  appear,  then,  that 
the  force  that  we  mean  by  attention  is  rather  a  vis  a 
fronte  attracting  consciousness,  than  a  vis  a  tergo  driv- 
ing it.  Consciousness  is  the  result,  not  the  cause  of 
the  excitation.  The  psychological  mode  of  expression 
puts  the  cart  before  the  horse  ;  the  problem  in  reflec- 
tion is  not,  as  it  is  said,  to  direct  consciousness  or  to 
direct  the  attention  to  an  idea,  but  to  arouse  con- 
sciousness of  it  by  stirring  it  up  to  a  certain  pitch  of 
activity."  1 

Without  at  all  committing  ourselves  to  the  material- 
istic basis  of  this  argument,  we  may  fairly  claim  that 
Maudsley's  conclusions  are  in  full  harmony  with  the 
Herbartian  theory. 

Attention  consists  in  giving  ideas  a  chance  to  rise 
above  the  threshold.  This  chance  is  given  them  by 
keeping  back  or  inhibiting  all  other  ideas,  and  particu- 
larly those  which  are  hostile  to  the  ideas  we  wish  to 
bring  into  prominence.  It  is  this  work  of  inhibition 
that  causes  the  peculiar  feeling  of  effort  that  marks  all 
voluntary  attention  as  opposed  to  involuntary.  "  Either 
we  must  abandon  all  explanation,  or  admit  an  action 
1  Physiology  of  Mind,  pp.  317  ff.  Quoted  by  Kibot. 


258  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  inhibition  exerted  upon  the  motor  elements  of  the 
states  of  consciousness  involved.  In  such  cases  we 
have  a  very  distinct  feeling  of  sustained  effort.  And 
whence  could  that  feeling  come,  if  not  from  the  energy 
expended  to  accomplish  the  acts  of  inhibition?  For, 
indeed,  the  ordinary  course  of  thought,  left  to  itself, 
is  exempt  from  any  such  sensation."1 

Accepting  inhibition  as  a  working  hypothesis  to  ex- 
plain the  mechanism,  we  have  now  to  find  what  force 
directs  attention  or  determines  the  point  upon  which 
it  shall  be  applied.  In  every  case  attention  owes  its 
direction  to  the  emotional  states  that  accompany  mental 
action  ;  in  other  words,  attention  follows  interest.  Sup- 
pose that  the  letter  brought  by  the  maid  in  our  former 
example  comes  from  a  friend  with  whom  I  am  anxious 
to  enter  into  communication.  I  turn  with  what  is 
called  interest  to  the  map.  The  letter  is  dated  from 
Foggia,  and  the  portrait  of  King  Umberto  on  the  stamp 
shows  me  that  Foggia  is  in  Italy.  My  eye,  in  running 
rapidly  down  the  peninsula,  passes  with  indifference 
some  of  the  most  interesting  towns  in  the  world  with- 
out any  attention  resulting.  Venice,  Florence,  Rome, 
and  Naples  all  have  to  give  place  to  this  comparatively 
unknown  town  of  Foggia.  Once  Foggia  has  been 
found,  the  interest  (and  the  attention)  passes  from  it 
to  Brindisi,  which  is  to  be  my  friend's  next  stopping- 
place.  The  distance  between  those  towns  suddenly  ac- 
quires an  interest,  which  soon  gives  way  to  that  of  the 
postal  arrangements,  which  I  find  in  a  convenient  little 
book  on  my  desk.  In  all  this  attention  follows  interest. 
1  Ribot,  The  Psychology  of  Attention,  p.  64. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF   INTEREST  259 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem,  that  the  converse  may  be 
maintained  with  equal  truth,  for  in  very  many  cases 
interest  certainly  does  follow  attention.  If  we  take  up 
some  particularly  commonplace  object,  say  an  old  key, 
and  direct  all  our  attention  to  it,  the  result  is  that  a 
certain  amount  of  interest  is  at  once  developed.  But 
while  it  is  true  that  the  greater  the  interest  in  an 
object  the  greater  the  attention  we  naturally  give  it, 
the  converse  does  not  hold.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
greater  the  attention  the  greater  the  interest.  Interest 
depends  upon  the  apperception  masses  that  can  be 
brought  into  relation  with  the  given  object.  Attention 
cannot  create  masses,  it  can  only  give  masses  a  chance 
to  rise  into  consciousness.  I  attend  with  maddening 
concentration  to  a  black  spot  on  my  sheet  of  note  paper, 
and  the  more  I  attend  the  less  interesting  the  blot  be- 
comes. If  I  want  interest,  I  must  let  my  mind  wander 
around  the  blot,  and  seek  to  find  a  place  for  it  in  some 
respectable  apperception  mass.  Intense  attention  to  a 
very  limited  area  does  not  conduce  to  interest,  but  to 
sleep.  The  hypnotic  patient  can  hardly  be  said  to  show 
a  high  degree  of  interest. 

Teachers  are  fond  of  talking  about  creating  an 
interest ;  but  this  labour  at  least  is  spared  them. 
They  have  not  to  create  but  only  to  direct  interest. 
The  most  careless  and  inattentive  boy  at  school  is  not 
without  interest,  not  even  without  attention.  The 
trouble  is  that  he  is  interested  in  wrong  things,  and 
naturally  attends  to  what  he  is  interested  in.  It  is 
no  doubt  humiliating  for  the  schoolmaster  to  accept 
a  place  in  the  scale  of  interest  much  lower  than  that 


260  THE   HERBAETIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

held  by  a  healthy  bluebottle ;  but  there  is  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  at  the  expense  of  a  slight  sacrifice  of  dig- 
nity the  tables  may  be  turned  upon  the  droning  dipter. 
Let  but  the  master  appear  in  a  night-cap  of  sufficient 
brilliancy,  and  the  bluebuzzer  will  buzz  in  vain. 

This  night-cap  teaching  must  characterize  the  earli- 
est stages  of  infant  training.  The  child's  attention  is 
nearly  involuntary,  which  is  fortunate  for  the  teacher, 
who  can  thus  to  a  large  extent  direct  the  infantile  at- 
tention in  any  way  he  pleases,  so  long  as  he  takes  the 
trouble  to  understand  how  the  thing  works.  He  can 
so  arrange  his  object  that  the  child  cannot  choose  but 
attend.  So  soon  as  the  master  introduces  the  ideas  of 
reward  and  punishment,  the  child  enters  upon  a  new 
stage.  The  child  who  attends  to  the  name  of  a  ginger- 
bread letter  in  order  that  having  once  learned  the  name 
he  may  afterwards  eat  the  letter,  has  entered  upon  the 
second  stage  of  attention,  —  the  stage  with  which  the 
process  of  education  is  specially  concerned.  In  the  first 
stage  the  attention  follows  whatever  attracts  it ;  interest 
is  paramount.  In  the  third,  or  final  stage,  the  con- 
tents of  the  mind  are  so  arranged  and  organized  that 
attention  can  be  maintained  in  certain  directions  with 
the  minimum  of  interest.  It  would  seem,  then,  that 
the  process  of  education  consists  in  the  systematic 
elimination  of  interest.  This  view  is  true  to  the  ex- 
tent that  interest  is  continually  being  eliminated  from 
certain  mental  processes,  and  transferred  to  others. 
The  child  first  loses  interest  in  how  to  hold  the  pen, 
then  in  how  to  form  the  simple  letters,  next  in  the 
proper  joining  of  the  letters,  and  so  on.  But  each  loss 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  261 

of  interest  is  accompanied  by  the  development  of  a  new 
interest.  Interest  is,  and  has  long  been  recognized  as, 
the  gravitation  of  education. 

We  are  here  brought  face  to  face  with  the  unpleasant 
aspect  of  interest  that  is  usually  denoted  by  the  term 
self-interest,  and  teachers  are  found  who  object  to  the 
use  of  interest  on  the  ground  that  it  leads  to  selfish- 
ness. The  objection  is  trifling,  and  almost  unworthy 
of  consideration. 

It  is  to  the  interest  of  a  granite  merchant  to  learn  a 
little  Swedish  and  Norwegian  in  order  to  be  able  to 
correspond  with  Scandinavians  with  whom  his  business 
brings  him  into  contact.  In  this  case  the  interest  is 
not  in  Swedish  but  in  granite,  or  probably  merely  in 
the  profits  that  the  granite  may  bring.  Yet  the  inter- 
est in  money  or  granite  causes  the  attention  to  be 
turned  to  Swedish. 

Sometimes  a  clergyman  enlivens  a  sermon,  or  a  poli- 
tician an  address,  by  introducing  a  story.  If  the  story 
is  worked  into  the  fibre  of  the  address  so  that  it  could 
not  be  withdrawn  without  affecting  the  whole  bearing 
of  the  argument,  the  interest  aroused  by  the  story  is 
legitimate.  But  if  the  stories  are  introduced  into  a 
discourse,  as  raisins  are  into  a  pudding,  merely  to 
enrich  it,  the  interest  they  arouse  is  illegitimate.  The 
audience  prick  up  their  ears  till  the  story  is  past. 
Their  interest  dies  with  the  story.  This  is  a  case  of 
substituting  one  interest  for  another,  and  so  far  from 
aiding  the  speaker  actually  hinders  him.  Instead  of 
arousing  an  interest  in  the  rest  of  the  address,  it  raises 
up  a  rival  interest. 


262  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

In  the  case  of  the  granite  merchant  we  have  a  more 
hopeful  example.  The  man  may  be  led  through  money 
to  granite,  and  through  granite  to  Swedish,  and  yet 
by  and  by  take  an  honest  interest  in  Swedish,  without 
in  any  way  diminishing  his  interests  in  other  directions. 

This  seems  the  most  natural  place  to  take  up  another 
objection  to  the  use  of  interest  in  education.  There 
are  those  who  fear  that  by  making  everything  in 
school  interesting  and  pleasant,  there  will  be  lost  one 
of  the  main  advantages  of  our  school  training.  A  boy 
brought  up  on  the  interest  principle,  it  is  argued,  when 
he  is  thrown  out  into  the  world,  where  everything  is 
not  arranged  so  as  to  interest  him,  will  find  himself 
unable  to  cope  with  the  new  and  unexpected  circum- 
stances. Critics  who  reason  thus  tell  us  that  John 
will  live  to  curse  the  training  that  gave  him  a  false 
view  of  life,  arid  left  him  unprepared  to  face  the  grim 
reality.  They  complain  bitterly  about  our  playing  at 
education,  and  assert  with  vehemence  the  need  of  hon- 
est effort  if  anything  is  to  be  attained  either  in  acquir- 
ing knowledge  or  gaining  self-command.  They  despise 
as  effeminate  all  efforts  to  add  to  the  charm  of  work  to 
be  done,  and  quote  with  grim  approval  Bain's  words  :  — 

"  Then  comes  the  stern  conclusion  that  the  uninter- 
esting must  be  faced  at  last  ;  that  by  no  palliation  or 
device  are  we  able  to  make  agreeable  everything  that 
has  to  be  mastered.  The  age  of  drudgery  must  com- 
mence :  every  motive  that  can  avert  it  is  in  the  end 
exhausted."1 

The  theory  of  interest  does  not  propose  to  banish 
1  Education  as  a  Science,  p.  184. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  INTEREST  263 

drudgery,  but  only  to  make  drudgery  tolerable  by  giv- 
ing it  a  meaning.  We  have  seen  that  what  is  inter- 
esting is  by  no  means  necessarily  pleasant ;  but  it  is 
something  that  impels  us  to  exertion.  If  pleasure  be 
the  sole  object  the  teacher  has  in  view  in  cultivating 
interest,  he  will  fail  miserably.  The  pleasure  attend- 
ing interest  only  conies  when  the  interest  has  no  direct 
thought  of  pleasure.  George  Eliot  well  expresses  Her- 
bart's  many-sided  interest  in  the  epilogue  to  Romola, 
where  Romola  is  teaching  Lillo.  "It  is  only  a  poor 
sort  of  happiness  that  could  ever  come  by  caring  very 
much  about  our  own  narrow  pleasures.  We  can  only 
have  the  highest  happiness,  such  as  goes  along  with 
being  a  great  man,  by  having  wide  thoughts,  and  much 
feeling  for  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  ourselves  ; 
and  this  sort  of  happiness  often  brings  so  much  pain 
with  it  that  we  can  only  tell  it  from  pain  by  its  being 
what  we  would  choose  before  everything  else,  because 
our  souls  see  it  is  good." 

Coming  down  from  this  high  level  to  the  common 
motives  of  school  life,  we  find  that,  so  far  from  ener- 
vating the  pupil,  the  principle  of  interest  braces  him 
up  to  endure  all  manner  of  drudgery  and  hard  work. 
The  medical  student  who  shirks  the  drudgery  of  mount- 
ing microscopic  slides  will  spend  hours  in  acquiring  by 
monotonous  work  a  useful  stroke  at  billiards  ;  the  law 
student  who  is  bored  to  death  by  the  supposititious  dis- 
putes of  those  quarrelsome  persons  A  and  B  in  his  text- 
books, will  eagerly  con  all  the  specimen  "hands" 
worked  out  at  the  end  of  "Cavendish."  To  come 
nearer  home,  the  boy  who  yawns  over  the  pretty  free- 


264  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

hand  drawing  copy  will  eagerly  work  for  hours  on  his 
slate,  or  on  the  unprinted  pages  of  his  Reader,  to  get 
up  a  peculiarly  roguish  expression  on  his  "  man's  "  face, 
or  a  specially  satisfactory  way  of  turning  a  foot,  or 
representing  the  smoke  of  a  steamer  or  the  billows  of 
a  choppy  sea.  If  a  teacher  has  once  observed  a  boy 
learning  to  read  with  the  book  upside  down,  he  will  no 
longer  doubt  that  interest  helps  boys  to  face  drudgery, 
not  to  shun  it.  A  boy  who  despises  the  ordinary  read- 
ing lessons  as  the  veriest  "  tommyrot "  will  devote 
every  moment  of  his  spare  time  to  acquire  this  fasci- 
nating art  of  inversion.  The  case  is  not  unknown  in 
which  John,  in  his  ill-considered  zeal  to  acquire  the 
coveted  art,  has  so  far  forgotten  himself  as  to  give  him- 
self seriously  to  the  legitimate  form  of  reading  in  order 
the  better  to  master  the  illegitimate. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  is  a  mere  matter 
of  the  difference  between  work  and  play,  as  in  the 
classical  case  of  Tom  Sawyer  and  the  fence.  It  is  true 
that  John  resents  problems  in  his  arithmetic  book,  re- 
garding it  (not  without  some  show  of  reason)  as  a 
waste  of  time  to  find  how  many  pecks  of  corn  a  certain 
number  of  horses  will  eat  under  distressingly  compli- 
cated circumstances ;  while  he  will  cheerfully  sacrifice 
a  whole  afternoon  to  puzzle  his  way  through  some 
arithmetical  quibble  at  the  end  of  his  Youth's  Com- 
panion or  of  his  Boy's  Own  Paper.  Yet  if  by  any 
means  the  teacher  can  rouse  interest  in  those  unfortu- 
nate animals,  the  arithmetical  beasts  at  once  get  John's 
fullest  voluntary  attention. 

A  case  in  point.    John  was  a  perfectly  normal  type  — 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  265 

clever  and  very  careless.  Suddenly  the  mathematical 
master  reported  an  amazing  improvement  in  John's 
marks.  On  investigation  the  improvement  was  found 
to  limit  itself  to  mensuration.  Still  further  inquiry 
narrowed  down  the-  prodigy  to  areas  of  segments  of 
circles ;  but  as  those  could  not  be  understood  without 
previous  work,  John  asked  and  obtained  permission 
to  work  from  the  beginning.  In  three  weeks  he  had 
bored  his  way  honestly  through  half  of  Todhunter's 
Mensuration,  and  was  very  eager  to  be  promoted  to 
the  volumes  of  spheres.  John  was  now  the  talk  of  the 
masters'  room,  where  nobody  had  a  good  word  to  say 
for  him  except  the  science  master,  who  reported  that 
John  had  developed  a  violent  interest  in  Chemistry, 
and  was  showing  leanings  towards  volumetric  analysis. 
The  whole  trouble  was  afterwards  traced  to  its  primary 
bacillus  in  a  gigantic  balloon  that  John  was  projecting. 
How  to  cut  the  gores  drove  him  to  Todhunter  ;  how  to 
calculate  how  much  zinc  and  sulphuric  acid  were  neces- 
sary to  float  his  balloon  with  hydrogen  had  urged  him 
to  Chemistry.  Balloon-making  did  not  make  either 
mensuration  or  Chemistry  easy ;  it  made  them  inter- 
esting. 

A  feeble  objection  to  the  use  of  interest  as  an  essen- 
tial part  of  all  education  is  that  it  leaves  no  room  for 
training  the  sense  of  duty.  Under  this  lurks  the 
humiliating  assumption  that  duty  is  necessarily  unin- 
teresting. This  fallacy,  that  duty  is  in  its  very  nature 
uninteresting  and  unpleasant,  is  deeply  rooted  in  many 
minds,  and  requires  very  vigorous  efforts  to  dislodge 
it.  Most  men  find  that  all  their  acts  fall  easily  and 


266  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

naturally  into  two  great  classes,  —  those  that  they  do 
because  they  like  to  do  them,  and  those  that  they  do 
because  they  must.  The  great  mistake  lies  in  assum- 
ing that  those  two  classes  are  mutually  exclusive,  and 
in  identifying  duty  with  the  second  class  alone.  If  a 
schoolmaster  plays  golf  or  studies  Chinese,  it  is  because 
he  likes  to  ;  but  when  he  teaches  in  school,  it  is  because 
he  must.  Does  it  follow  because  a  man  has  to  teach 
for  his  living  that  he  must  therefore  dislike  teaching, 
and  find  it  dull  and  uninteresting?  No  doubt  the 
mere  fact  that  he  is  compelled  to  work  at  teaching 
gives  the  man  a  strong  bias  against  it ;  a  bias  that  some- 
times gets  the  better  of  him,  but  which,  in  many  cases 
at  least,  is  resisted. 

Spurgeon  used  to  advise  young  men  who  consulted 
him  on  the  subject,  not  to  become  clergymen  unless 
they  could  not  help  it.  There  are  at  least  some 
teachers  who  have  applied  this  principle  in  choosing 
their  profession ;  they  teach  because  they  cannot  help 
it.  That  such  teachers  are  rare  cannot  be  denied,  but 
this  surely  does  not  go  to  prove  the  in  judiciousness  of 
employing  interest ;  rather  it  shows  the  need  for  culti- 
vating it.  It  has  to  be  admitted  that  there  are  some 
things  in  life  dull  and  dreary  in  themselves  ;  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  drudgery.  But  drudgery  can  be 
faced  and  overcome  not  by  a  long  course  of  drudgery 
drill  at  school,  but  by  stirring  up  an  interest  in  the 
process,  or  at  any  rate  in  the  result,  of  the  drudgery 
itself.  A  long  course  of  drudgery  in  school  will  no 
doubt  so  break  a  boy's  spirit  as  to  make  him  unfit  to 
be  anything  in  the  world  but  a  drudge.  So  long  as  a 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    INTEREST  267 

boy's  spirit  remains,  a  course  of  drudgery  leads  only  to 
a  wild  desire  to  get  free  from  it.  This  educational 
homoeopathy  stands  self-condemned.  On  the  other 
hand,  give  a  boy  sufficient  interest  in  anything,  and 
we  have  seen  that  all  the  attendant  drudgery  is  cheer- 
fully faced. 

But  all  boys  are  not  interested  in  the  same  things. 
We  must  then  discover  wherein  interest  in  general 
consists.  Why  is  a  novel,  for  example,  more  interest- 
ing than  a  book  on  some  scientific  subject  ?  To  this  it 
is  a  perfectly  legitimate  reply  :  a  novel  is  not  more 
interesting  than  a  book  on  science.  We  all  know  that 
Darwin  at  the  end  of  his  life  could  not  read  either 
poetry  or  fiction,  though  in  his  youth  he  had  been  fond 
of  both  ;  and  many  who  have  no  claim  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  same  breath  with  Darwin  share  in  this  peculiar- 
ity. It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  the  scientific 
book  cannot  compete  with  the  novel  in  the  open  market. 
Public  librarians  blush  as  they  annually  proclaim  their 
thousands  of  novel  readers,  and  their  beggarly  hun- 
dreds of  readers  of  scientific  and  other  solid  books. 

Yet  even  here  we  must  discriminate.  It  is  not  a 
question  merely  of  novels  versus  solid  books  ;  it  is  one 
kind  of  novel  against  another.  Huxley's  Crayfish  and 
Professor  Judd's  Volcanoes  would  score  an  easy  first  if 
their  only  rivals  were  novels  of  the  style  of,  say,  Ras- 
selas  and  the  Shaving  of  Shagpat.  There  are  hard 
novels  and  easy  novels  ;  most  people  find  their  interest 
in  easy  novels.  Why  is  Tlie  Gates  of  Eden  easier  to 
read  than  Romola?  The  answer  is:  it  is  not  easier; 
it  is  different.  It  all  depends  on  the  reader.  There 


268  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

are  those  who  have  no  interest  in  The  Crates  of  Eden 
because  their  apperception  masses  cannot  supply  the 
ideas  necessary  to  apperceive  the  idyllic  sweetness  of 
the  tale.  Give  them  a  good-going  Police  News  para- 
graph, or  a  spicy  divorce  case,  and  their  masses  do  not 
fail  them  ;  interest  is  no  longer  lacking.  There  are 
those  again  who  cannot  get  up  an  interest  in  The  Grates 
of  Eden  for  quite  another  reason.  Those  minds  have 
lived  through  and  passed  beyond  the  stage  at  which 
the  G-ates  are  of  interest.  Such  minds  find  their  inter- 
est in  books  like  Romola. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  all  a  matter  of  apperception 
masses.  Cheap  easy  novels  have  the  widest  circulation 
because  most  people's  apperception  masses  are  meagre 
and  badly  arranged.  The  masses  connected  with  the 
senses  are  naturally  well-developed  in  most  minds,  and 
the  very  word  sensational,  as  applied  to  novels,  is  an 
unconscious  argument  in  favour  of  the  truth  of  our 
thesis. 

Yet  books  of  the  same  class,  and  dealing  with  pre- 
cisely the  same  stage  of  the  same  subject,  differ  consid- 
erably in  the  interest  that  they  call  forth.  Here  we 
have  a  much  more  promising  field  of  inquiry  for  our 
purpose.  Obviously  it  cannot  be  a  difference  in  matter 
this  time,  for  the  matter  is  identical  in  the  two  cases ; 
and  behind  this  consideration  is  the  uneasy  feeling  that 
as  a  consequence  interest  cannot  depend  on  the  apper- 
ception masses  after  all.  The  masses  can  explain  why 
we  prefer  Byron's  Waterloo  to  a  useful  little  text-book 
on  ambulance  work;  but  how  are  we  to  explain  our 
greater  interest  in  one  ambulance  book  than  in  another 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  269 

which  covers  exactly  the  same  ground  ?  The  difference 
must  obviously  lie  in  the  form  in  which  the  matter  is 
presented.  To  those  matter-of-fact  people  who  main- 
tain that  when  a  fact  has  to  be  communicated  it  does 
not  at  all  matter  how  it  is  done,  it  is  pleasant  to  be 
able  to  supply  an  illustration  after  their  own  heart. 
The  chief  waste  of  our  bodies  is  in  carbon,  of  which  we 
require  to  make  up  about  4500  grains  per  day,  if  we 
happen  to  be  the  average  healthy  man  that  the  Physiol- 
ogy text-books  love.  Accordingly  we  want  a  large 
and  steady  supply  of  carbon.  Now  we  find  in  wood  a 
delightfully  abundant  source  of  carbon.  Why,  then,  is 
there  no  run  upon  shavings  during  a  time  of  famine  ? 
Why  does  sawdust  not  keep  down  the  price  of  porridge  ? 

Were  we  not  dealing  with  matter-of-fact  people,  we 
might  have  some  shame  in  baldly  stating  the  answer. 
The  body  is  rather  particular  as  to  the  form  in  which 
it  will  take  its  carbon.  Some  men  take  their  whiskey 
neat,  some  with  water.  It  is  only  the  teetotaller  who 
makes  the  contemptuous  mistake  of  supposing  that  it  is 
a  matter  of  small  consequence  which  way  is  adopted. 
The  body  cannot  take  its  carbon  neat  —  to  the  great 
disappointment  of  chemists  and  the  commissariat  de- 
partment of  war  offices — nor  can  it  take  it  in  wood. 
It  insists  upon  having  it  in  decent  oatmeal,  and  other 
legitimate  forms.  So  with  ideas.  If  an  idea  is  pre- 
sented to  a  mind  unprepared  for  it,  there  is  no  genuine 
assimilation.  At  this  point  it  may  be  convenient  to 
drop  the  physiological  figure.  Its  further  development 
would  no  doubt  be  effective,  but  inartistic. 

Take  the  concrete  case  of  a  boy  learning  Latin.     He 


270  THE  HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

may  begin  with  the  Rudiments,  or  he  may  begin  with 
some  such  book  as  Henry's  First  Latin  Book.  Both 
books  convey  the  same  information  in  the  long  run,  but 
the  severe  Rudiments  arouses  no  interest,  while  the 
other  book  with  its  immediate  application  of  every  rule, 
and  its  actual  translation  from  and  into  Latin,  at  once 
arouses  and  maintains  an  interest  in  what  is  going  on. 

Most  of  us  remember  the  queer  sensations  we  had 
when  as  boys  we  were  galloped  through  the  axioms  of 
Euclid.  There  was  no  difficulty  in  understanding 
them.  The  difficulty  was  rather  to  understand  what  in 
the  world  was  the  good  of  saying  over  all  those  pike- 
staff platitudes.  "  The  whole  is  greater  than  its  part." 
Of  course  !  Who  said  it  wasn't  ?  What  an  ass  Euclid 
must  have  been,  would  certainly  have  been  our  thought 
had  we  happened  to  know  —  which  most  of  us  did  not 
—  that  Euclid  had  been  a  man.  To  us  Euclid  was  an 
exercise  book  that  no  more  demanded  a  living  man  be- 
hind it  than  did  the  multiplication  table.  Euclid  was 
a  part  of  the  nature  of  things,  like  schoolmasters,  and 
it  did  not  enter  into  our  minds  to  go  into  the  teleol- 
ogy of  either.  That  a  man  called  Ovid  once  sat  down 
and  wrote,  for  his  own  satisfaction  and  other  people's 
pleasure,  certain  scannable  lines,  seems  to  a  schoolboy 
a  prodigy  to  be  sarcastically  spoken  of.  An  Ovid  with- 
out a  scansion  table  at  the  beginning,  and  a  vocabulary 
at  the  end,  seems  to  many  of  our  newer  boys  something 
very  like  a  contradiction  in  terms.  The  boy's  attitude 
towards  Latin  as  taught  on  the  old  plan  cannot  be  bet- 
ter put  than  by  George  Eliot  in  The  Mill  on  the  Floss.1 
i  Page  126. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  271 

"  It  is  doubtless  almost  incredible  to  instructed  minds 
of  the  present  day  that  a  boy  of  twelve,  not  belonging 
strictly  to  'the  masses,'  who  are  now  understood  to 
have  the  monopoly  of  mental  darkness,  should  have  had 
no  distinct  idea  how  there  came  to  be  such  a  thing  as 
Latin  on  this  earth  ;  yet  so  it  was  with  Tom.  It  would 
have  taken  a  long  while  to  make  conceivable  to  him 
that  there  ever  existed  a  people  who  bought  and  sold 
sheep  and  oxen,  and  transacted  the  every-day  affairs  of 
life,  through  the  medium  of  this  language,  and  still 
longer  to  make  him  understand  why  he  should  be 
called  upon  to  learn  it,  when  its  connection  with  those 
affairs  had  become  entirely  latent.  So  far  as  Tom  had 
gained  any  acquaintance  with  the  Romans  at  Mr. 
Jacob's  Academy,  his  knowledge  was  strictly  correct, 
but  it  went  no  further  than  the  fact  that  they  were 
'  in  the  New  Testament,'  and  Mr.  Stelling  was  not  the 
man  to  enfeeble  and  emasculate  his  pupil's  mind  by 
simplifying  and  explaining,  or  to  reduce  the  tonic  effect 
of  etymology  by  mixing  it  with  smattering  extraneous 
information,  such  as  is  given  to  girls." 

It  is  the  Noah's  Ark  fallacy  under  a  new  form.  The 
Rudiments  and  the  Delectus  certainly  contain  in  the 
smallest  possible  compass  all  that  the  schoolmaster 
thinks  it  necessary  to  know  about  Latin.  It  is  there- 
fore assumed  that  it  is  the  best  form  in  which  Latin 
can  be  presented  to  the  pupil.  We  have  found,  how- 
ever, that  in  order  truly  to  understand  anything,  we 
must  see  it  in  its  proper  surroundings.  It  is  not  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  go  to  Rome  in  order  to  learn  Latin, 
—  though  it  would  undoubtedly  be  learnt  there  with 


272  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

an  added  interest,  —  but  it  is  necessary  that  it  should 
be  learnt  as  something  having  a  meaning  in  itself, 
not  as  a  mere  exercise.  A  schoolmaster's  estimate  of 
CaBsar  has  been  sarcastically  given  as  "a  man  who 
wrote  a  very  good  school-book,  which  would  have  been 
excellent  if  only  it  had  been  better  graduated." 

To  be  interesting,  a  thing  must  find  a  natural  place 
for  itself  in  the  cosmos  of  the  child's  mind.  An  en- 
tirely unknown  thing  can  have  no  interest  whatever  for 
a  child,  or  indeed  for  an  adult.  Teaching  consists  in 
finding  or  forming  suitable  places  among  the  appercep- 
tion masses  for  new  ideas.  Interest  then  depends  on 
two  things, — the  activity  of  the  particular  apperception 
mass  in  question,  and  the  intensity  of  the  stimulus 
which  arouses  it.  An  apperception  mass  that  has  had 
long  and  complete  possession  of  the  dome  of  conscious- 
ness is  easily  roused  to  action,  and  frequently  modifies 
the  most  unpromising  subjects  into  stimuli.  The  case 
of  Camper,  the  physiologist,  is  only  a  specially  striking 
example  of  what  is  continually  happening  in  the  experi- 
ence of  all.  "  I  have  been  employed,"  he  says,  "  six 
months  on  the  Cetacea;  I  understand  the  osteology  of 
the  head  of  these  monsters,  and  have  made  the  combi- 
nation with  the  human  head  so  well,  that  everybody 
now  appears  to  me  narwhale,  porpoise,  or  marsouin. 
Women  the  prettiest  in  society,  and  those  whom  I  find 
less  comely,  they  are  all  either  nar  whales  or  porpoises 
to  my  eyes."1 

From  the  boy  who  gets  up  an  interest  in  Farmer 
Giles'  pet  meadow  by  calculating  its  merits  as  a  cricket 
1  Quoted  by  Emerson,  Essay  on  the  Comic. 


THE  DOCTEINE   OF   INTEREST  273 

pitch,  up  to  the  Prussian  General  Bliicher  riding  along 
Regent  Street,  London,  muttering  "  What  plunder  !  " 
we  all  determine  our  interest  according  to  the  dominat- 
ing apperception  masses  in  our  minds. 

But  the  external  exciting  cause  of  interest  is  not 
without  its  special  function  and  influence.  A  particu- 
larly narwhale-headed  person  would  certainly  prove 
more  interesting  to  Camper  than  would  an  ordinary  one. 
Some  fields  in  themselves  are  more  interesting  to  school- 
boys than  are  others,  and  if  no  street  in  the  world  could 
be  quite  so  interesting  to  a  Prussian  general  as  Regent 
Street,  there  are  very  many  streets  that  are  less  so.1 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  the  last  resort 
all  interest  comes  from  within.  Chr.  Ufer,  in  a  pas- 
sage the  humour  of  which  does  not  seem  to  have  suffi- 
ciently 2  impressed  him,  tells  us  that  the  child  who 
flattens  his  nose  against  the  candy-shop  window  is  not 
really  interested  in  the  candy,  but  in  an  idea  that  he 
wishes  to  realize.  "  The  child  desires  the  candy,  in 
order  to  bring  the  concept  in  his  mind  to  complete 
clearness.  The  real  effect  of  the  desire  is,  therefore, 
not  the  candy,  but  the  taste  concept  in  question.  The 

1  This  is  quite  consistent  with  Wundt's  statement  in  the  Grundzuge, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  208  :  "Der  Grad  der  Apperception  nicht  nach  der  Starke 
des  ausseren  Eindrucks,  sondern  nur  nach  der  subjectiven  Thatigkeit 
zu  bemessen  ist,  durch  welche  sich  das  Bewusstsein  einem  bestimmten 
Sinnesreiz  zuwendet."     For  the  particularly  narwhale-headed  person 
derives  his  special  importance  in  this  case  as  a  Sinnesreiz  from  the 
content  of  Camper's  mind.    After  all,  a  certain  object  is  attractive 
because  the  inind  makes  it  so. 

2  Introduction  to  the  Pedagogy  of  Herbart  (Zinser's  Translation), 
p.  30. 

T 


274  THE   HEEBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

candy  is  desired  only  as  a  means  to  the  end,  as  an  ex- 
ternal means  to  an  internal  condition." 

At  first  sight  we  seem  here  to  have  little  better  than 
a -juvenile  prose  version  of  the  casket  philosophy  dealt 
out  to  the  luckless  Prince  of  Aragon  :  — 

"  Some  there  be  that  shadows  kiss, 
Such  have  but  a  shadow's  bliss." 

But  in  sober  truth  the  soul  can  have  nothing  to  do 
with  candy.  From  the  soul's  point  of  view  the  shadow 
of  the  candy,  the  idea  of  it,  is  what  is  really  desired. 
It  is  easy  to  point  out  that  the  soul  has  already  the  idea 
of  the  candy,  since  the  child  is  staring  at  it  through 
the  shop  window.  The  reply  is  prompt  and  crushing  : 
the  child  has  not  the  idea  as  he  wishes  to  have  it. 
The  sight  of  the  actual  candy  has  quickened  the  corre- 
sponding idea  as  a  sight  concept ;  what  the  child  wants 
is  to  have  it  quickened  into  a  taste  concept,  and  that 
nothing  short  of  the  candy  in  the  mouth  can  satisfac- 
torily effect.1 

The  mental  state  of  this  child  before  the  candy-shop 
window  is  the  ideal  state  to  which  the  teacher  wishes 
to  be  able  to  reduce  his  pupils  in  reference  to  things 
other  than  candy.  He  can  succeed  only  in  so  far  as  he 
knows  the  content  of  the  mind  upon  which  he  seeks  to 
act,  and  the  laws  according  to  which  mind  reacts  upon 
stimulus.  Assuming  those  two  conditions  fulfilled,  it 
appears  that  the  child  becomes  clay  in  the  hands  of  the 

1  See  some  very  important  observations  from  the  psychophysical 
standpoint  by  Professor  Donaldson  in  his  Growth  of  the  Brain,  pp. 
339,  340. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OP   INTEREST  275 

potter.  Given  certain  stimuli  which  the  teacher  may 
apply,  the  pupil  must  respond  to  them  in  a  definite  way. 
What  becomes  of  the  child's  will  ?  This  question  is  at 
present  causing  a  considerable  amount  of  uneasiness 
among  Herbartians,  who  in  all  other  respects  are 
thoroughly  satisfied  with  their  theory.  In  his  Psy- 
chology Herbart  makes  it  clear  that  what  is  called  the 
transcendental  will  does  not  commend  itself  to  his 
favour l  and  his  critics  have  not  failed  to  point  out  that 
"  transcendental  freedom  of  will,  in  Kant's  sense,  is  an 
impossibility  "2  in  his  system. 

It  seems  to  be  only  of  late,  however,  that  practical 
teachers  have  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  bearing  of 
this  fact  upon  their  work.  If  interest  inevitably  rouses 
desires,  and  desires  lead  to  determinations  resulting  in 
actions,  there  can  be  no  room  for  this  transcendental 
will  which  is  defined  as  "a  will  which  can  originate 
modifications  in  its  environment,  and  therefore  set  aside, 
to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  the  stream  of  causation  in 
which  it  finds  itself."3  It  is  maintained  by  critics  of 
the  Herbartian  doctrine  of  interest,  that  its  stream 
of  causation  leaves  no  room  for  the  working  of  the 
will  as  thus  defined.  In  answer  Professor  McMurry 
cheerily  writes  :  "  So  far  as  replies  to  this  charge  have 
been  given,  they  indicate  that  the  Herbartians,  while 
greatly  interested  in  the  discussion  of  the  transcenden- 
tal will,  regard  the  problem  as  belonging  rather  to 
metaphysics  than  to  pedagogy.  In  their  opinion  daily 
experience  teaches  that  interest  affects  volition  ;  and 

1  Psychology,  p.  118.  2  J.  Ward,  Art.  "  Herbart,"  Enc.  Brit. 

s  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris. 


276  THE  HERBARTIAN  PSYCHOLOGY 

that  is  enough  for  the  teacher,  for  he  sees  in  these  facts 
an  important  approach  to  conduct.  However,  in  reply 
to  this  sound  of  alarm,  it  may  be  said  that  if  a  trans- 
cendental will  is  one  that  is  absolutely  free,  or  one  that 
is  entirely  lifted  above  the  influence  of  desire  in  mak- 
ing choice,  then  education  is  comparatively  valueless, 
for  it  can  find  no  purchase  upon  such  a  will.  But  if 
the  transcendental  will  is  one  that  is  influenced  by  de- 
sire in  making  choice,  one  can  believe  in  it  heartily  and 
still  accept  the  above-mentioned  Herbartian  doctrine, 
for  it  is  known  that  desire  has  its  origin  in  interest."1 

From  our  standpoint  this  seems  eminently  straight- 
forward and  satisfactory.  It  does  not  please  Mr. 
A.  F.  Ames,  however,  who  replies 2  to  it,  pointing  out 
that  it  is  possible  to  accept  the  Herbartian  theory  of 
interest  without  giving  up^the  transcendental  will.  In 
fact,  if  we  neglect  interest,  he  maintains  that  we  are 
unfair  to  this  transcendental  will.  "  Place  a  child,"  he 
says,  "  whose  parents  have  been  vicious  and  immoral  in 
a  pure  environment  and  under  wholesome  influences, 
and  his  will  may  be  strong  enough  to  originate  such 
modifications  in  his  hereditary  tendencies  as  will  save 
him."  But  on  the  other  hand:  "Place  a  child  in  the 
midst  of  surroundings  which  are  grossly  immoral,  and 
his  will  is  powerless  to  originate  modifications  in  his 
environment  that  shall  set  aside  the  streams  of  causa- 
tion in  which  he  finds  himself." 

Does  this  differ  in  any  important  way  from  the  sun- 
nier statement  of  Professor  McMurry  ?  Neither  main- 
tains the  absolute  freedom  of  the  will,  for  even  with 
1  Am.  Educ.  Review,  Feb.,  1896.  *  Ibid.,  April,  1896. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  277 

Mr.  Ames  it  can  only  "  set  aside,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  the  stream  of  causation." 

By  considering  the  actual  standing  of  interest  among 
the  Herbartians,  we  may  come  to  a  resolution  of  this 
antagonism.  So  far  are  the  Herbartian  educationists 
from  fearing  interest  that  they  have  actually  raised  it 
from  a  means  to  an  end. 

The  result  of  a  course  of  education  is  no  longer  to 
be  tested  by  the  amount  of  knowledge  acquired,  but  by 
the  strength  and  variety  of  the  interests  aroused.  This 
looks  like  turning  our  educational  world  upside  down. 
But  a  little  probing  will  show  that  the  paradox  is  not 
so  absurd  after  all.  Knowledge  is  not  displaced  from 
her  high  estate  as  an  educational  organon,  since  inter- 
est, being  a  matter  of  apperception  masses  in  any  direc- 
tion, really  depends  on  the  content  of  the  mind.  No 
doubt  the  knowledge  implied  is  not  of  the  catalogue 
kind  that  teachers  love.  A  man  may  be  greatly  inter- 
ested in  pictures,  without  being  able  to  rattle  off  names 
of  painters,  and  dates  of  exhibitions,  to  say  nothing  of 
prices.  Such  a  man  has  seen  and  appreciated  many 
pictures,  and  each  new  picture  he  sees  he  apperceives 
through  all  his  gathered  experience.  We  do  not  say 
that  he  has  the  picture  faculty  well  developed ;  we  are 
content  to  say  that  he  has  a  large  and  well-developed 
apperception  mass  dealing  with  pictures.  His  training 
has  made  him  a  cultured  man  in  this  direction.  As 
the  French  idiom  neatly  puts  it  :  he  knows  himself  in 
pictures. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  a  man  is  as  much  a  man 
again  for  every  language  he  knows.  As  strong  a 


278  THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 

statement  may  be  made  about  every  important  interest 
a  man  possesses.  Your  ideally  educated  man  must  have 
a  many-sided  interest.  Your  man  of  one  idea,  of  one 
subject,  is,  as  a  rule,  a  very  useful  man  in  society,  or 
rather  to  society ;  but  he  is  not  in  himself  a  complete 
man.  He  is  an  invaluable  instrument,  but  he  is  only 
a  means,  he  is  not  an  end  in  himself.  Now  certain 
philosophers  of  a  happy  turn  of  mind  —  a  rare  turn  that 
deserves  every  encouragement  —  believe  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  make  the  most  of  one's  own  life,  and  yet  do  the 
best  for  society  ;  indeed,  that  only  by  doing  the  best 
for  oneself  can  one  do  the  best  for  the  society  in  which 
one  lives. 

Naturally  the  selfishness  referred  to  is  not  the  ordi- 
nary vice  of  the  natural  man.  It  is  true  selfishness, 
cosmic  selfishness.  Only  in  so  far  as  a  man  makes  the 
most  of  his  nature  does  he  fulfil  his  function  in  the 
organism  of  which  he  forms  a  part. 

To  this  Hegelian  conception  the  Herbartian  educa- 
tional system  is  tending.  Obviously  it  underlies  Mr. 
Ames'  view  of  the  function  of  the  transcendental  will, 
and  Dr.  Harris  in  an  appreciative  notice l  of  Professor 
Dewey's  essay  in  the  Second  Supplement  to  the  Herbar- 
tian Year  Book  for  1895  practically  applies  the  doc- 
trine of  self-realization.  To  be  sure,  Professor  Dewey 
adopts  the  term  self-expression,  but  it  comes  to  pretty 
much  the  same  thing.  According  to  his  critic,  Pro- 
fessor Dewey's  technical  term  self-expression  combines 
all  that  is  implied  in  Plato's  'Am/ti^av?,  Aristotle's 
Oewpeiv,  and  Kant  and  Hegel's  pure  thinking. 
1  Am.  Educ.  Review,  May,  1896. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   INTEREST  279 

It  is  probably  too  much  to  say  that  the  Herbartians 
as  a  body  agree  with  Dr.  Harris  and  Professor  Dewey, 
but  in  the  meantime  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  latest 
word  of  the  Herbartians  deposes  interest  from  its  place 
as  the  first  principle  of  education,  and  makes  it  rank 
second  to  the  principle  of  self-realization.  Interests 
must  be  tested  by  their  effect  on  the  child's  develop- 
ment, viewed  in  connection  with  its  place  in  the  organic 
unity  of  the  world  in  which  it  has  to  live.  "  Interest 
must  be  acknowledged  as  subordinate  to  the  higher 
question  of  the  choice  of  a  course  of  study  that  will 
correlate  the  child  with  the  civilization  into  which  he 
is  born." 

This  outcome  of  his  work  would  no  doubt  have 
greatly  surprised  Johann  Friedrich  Herbart.  But  if 
we  have  drifted  somewhat  from  Herbart,  we  have 
drawn  nearer  to  Froebel.  That  the  two  opposing  sys- 
tems should  tend  to  meet  on  common  ground  is  no 
more  than  one  acquainted  with  the  movement  of  the 
Hegelian  dialectic  would  expect.  It  might  be  in- 
teresting, and  it  would  not  be  excessively  difficult,  to 
resolve  the  antagonism  of  the  two  systems ;  but  from 
such  a  discussion  the  practical  teacher  has  every  right 
to  claim  exemption. 


INDEX 


Abstract,  219. 

Abstraction,  48. 

Activity,  73. 

Activity,  preservative,  59,  75. 

Ames,  A.  F.,  276,  278. 

Apperception,  64,  71. 

Apperception  mass,  51,  54,  75,  105, 
124,  132,  194,  259;  mechanism  of, 
95. 

Aristotle,  13,  199,  278. 

Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  90. 

Arrest,  57,  76. 

Assimilation,  64. 

Association,  laws  of,  52 ;  secondary 
laws  of,  53. 

Associationist  school,  38. 

Attention,  description  of,  248; 
limited  meaning  of,  253 ;  phenom- 
ena attending,  254;  three  stages 
of,  260;  voluntary  and  involun- 
tary, 250,  251. 

Bacon,  1,  2,  9,  13. 

Bain,  Professor,  29,  74,  150,  262. 

Barker,  Henry  J.,  217. 

Bell,  Professor,  143. 

Benevolent  superintendence,  42. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  135. 

Bias  of  Priene,  81. 

Binet,  143. 

Blake,  220. 

Boy's  Own  Paper,  map  competition, 

225  ff. 

Brown,  Dr.  Thomas,  39,  53. 
Browning,  Oscar,  6. 
Browning,  Robert,  157. 


Cabanis,  37. 

Camper,  272. 

Carlyle,  127. 

Chaucer,  103. 

Chess-training,  111. 

Club,  Herbart,  44. 

Coleridge,  157. 

Collins,  Wilkie,  229. 

Comenius,  82  n.,  83,  98  n.,  171. 

Complication,  56. 

Concept,  49  n. ;  kinds  of,  274 ;  psy- 
chological and  logical,  181. 

Consciousness,  18;  bulb  figure  of, 
38;  divided,  78;  infra-conscious- 
ness, 78 ;  wave-figure  of,  78,  252. 

Content  presented,  59. 

Continuum,  77,  235. 

Correspondence  of  mental  impres- 
sions, 231. 

Crab,  definition  of,  183  ff. 

Crime,  text-books  in,  117. 

Cruikshank,  George,  237. 

Cuvier,  183. 

Darwin,  C.,  21,  247,  267. 
Davidson,  Dr.,  113. 
Deduction  and  observation,  141  ff. 
Defining  and  understanding,  172. 
Definition,  principle  of,  183  ff. 
De  Foe,  227,  233,  235,  246. 
De  Morgan,  125. 
Depravity,  total,  82. 
Detective,  education,  139  ff. 
Dewey,  Professor,  278. 
Dickens,  Charles,  114,  117. 
Dictionary  teaching,  169, 


281 


282 


THE   HERBARTIAN   PSYCHOLOGY 


Dictionary,  true  place  in  education, 
187. 

Dictionaries,  rhyming,  178. 

Dome,  figure  of,  50. 

Donaldson,  Professor,  108,  274  u. 

Dore',  Gustave,  222. 

Drawings,  in  education,  216;  in  re- 
ligion, 220. 

Dunces,  92. 

Education,  conflicting  systems  of,  7 ; 

empirical,  5 ;  formal,  108 ;  idealism 

in,  39 ;  a  mystery,  41. 
Ego,  as  idea,  193. 
Eliot,  George,  10,  263,  270. 
Emotion  and  its  expression,  254  ff. 
Environment,  96. 
Equality  of  men,  87. 
Euclid,  106,  154,  270. 

Facts,  67 ;  brute  facts,  152,  164 j  or- 
ganized into  faculty,  130;  subjec- 
tive element  of,  152  ff . 

Faculties,  innate,  47 ;  observing,  13(5. 

Fagin,  certificate,  134;  educational 
methods  of,  118 ;  school  report  of, 
115. 

Fairy  tales  v.  realism,  228. 

Fechner,  28,  80. 

Finality  in  education,  176. 

Forster,  222. 

Frankenstein,  86. 

Froebel,  11,  39  ff.,  86,  279. 

Fusion,  56. 

Galton,  Fr.,  20  n.,  150  n.,  220,  234. 
Gamins  v.  schoolboys,  121  ff. 
Gaping,  139. 
Genius,  91. 
Goldsmith,  103,  188. 
Guyau,  30  ff. 

Habrecht,  Isaac,  163,  170. 
Hallam,  1. 

Harris,  W.  T.,  49  n.,  275,  278. 
Hegel,  12,  45,  278. 


Helvetius,  88  ff.,  96  n. 

Heraclitus,  2,  08. 

Herbart,  J.  F.,  28,  45,  72,  79,  80,  275, 
279;  relation  to  Froebel,  45 ;  rela- 
tion to  Locke,  47. 

Herbartianism,  a  practical  applica- 
tion of,  134. 

Herodotus,  7,  85. 

Hodgson,  74. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  77,  178. 

Holmes,  Sherlock,  139;  limitations 
and  method,  147  ff.,  214. 

Houdin,  Robert,  138. 

Hume,  35. 

Huxley,  18,  23. 

Hypnotism,  30,  78. 

Hypotheses,  place  of,  in  Herbart's 
philosophy,  48. 

Hypothesis,  guiding,  149,  151,  214, 
239. 

Idealism,  39. 

Ideas,  36  ff.,  46;  admission  of,  58; 
complex,  57 ;  contrary,  disparate, 
and  similar,  55;  differences  in 
different  minds,  65  ff. ;  floating 
systems  of,  242 ;  focal,  marginal, 
and  infra-marginal,  78;  mechanism 
of,  49  ff. ;  out  of  consciousness,  63; 
process  of  communicating,  237 ; 
systems  of,  192. 

Idee. fixe,  61. 

Idols,  1 ;  of  the  den,  2 ;  of  the  mar- 
ket-place, 9 ;  of  the  theatre,  12 ;  of 
the  tribe,  2. 

Illustrations,  value  of,  221. 

Images,  146. 

Imitation,  educational  application 
of,  103,  121. 

Inhibition,  76,  254,  257. 

Interest,  162,  249;  and  attention, 
258  ff. ;  and  drudgery,  262 ;  objec- 
tions to,  261  ff. ;  present  position 
in  Herbartianism,  279;  raised 
from  means  to  end,  277. 

Introspection,  method  of,  34 ;  failure 
of,  35. 


INDEX 


283 


Jacotot,  16, 60, 90  ff.,  97, 10(5  n.,  156  n. 
James,  Professor  W.,  33,  64,  74,  78, 

185  n.,  254. 
Jesuits,  82. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  4,  181. 
Joke,  psychological  basis  of,  198  ff . 
Jury,  trial  by,  99. 

Kant,  12,  79,  275. 
Knowledge,  relativity  of,  67. 

Labour-saving  fallacy,  175. 

Lamb,  Charles,  189. 

Laplace,  126. 

Larceny  at  Sparta,  112. 

Laurie,  Professor,  5,  163. 

Leibnitz,  47  n. 

Literature  of  education,  6. 

"Little  man"   theory  of  boyhood, 

174. 

Littre',  8. 

Locke,  32  ff.,  47,  68,  99. 
Logic,  formal,  106,  129. 
Lotze,  246. 

Lubbock,  Sir  John, 131  n. 
Luther,  99. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  219. 

Man  as  measure,  67  ff. 

Man-making,  83. 

Maudsley,  21  n.,  194  n.,  257. 

McMurry,  Professor,  275. 

Meredith,  George,  235. 

Metaphysics,  39. 

Milton,  221. 

Mind,  kinds  of,  109. 

Morgan,  Lloyd,  Professor,  78,  79  n., 

231  n.,  253. 
Miiller,  Max,  152  n. 
Museum  teaching,  168. 

Napoleon,  127. 
Night-cap  teaching,  260. 
Noah's  Ark  teaching,  164,  271. 
Nursery  psychologists,  94. 

Observation,  135, 141 ;  method  of,  in 
psychology,    21 ;    omnium   gathe- 


rum, theory  of,  144 ;  true  meaning 

of,  162. 

Ojficina  hominum,  83. 
Orbis  Pictus,  220. 
Orchard-robbing,  111. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  81. 

Paulhan,  Dr.,  76,  77,  194  n.,  237. 

Pedantry,  8. 

Perrault,  228. 

Personal  equation,  69. 

Pestalozzi,  7,  11,  39,  41. 

Plant  metaphor,  11,  41. 

Plato,  3,  67,  182,  254,  278. 

Point,  statical,  62. 

Potter,  Archbishop,  113. 

Precept  v.  example,  103. 

Protagoras,  67. 

Psychology,    17;    averages    in,    19; 

choice  of,  26;   experimental,  85; 

Froebelian,  43;  mathematical,  79; 

teachers'  view  of,  22. 
Pupil-teachers,  128. 

Qualities,  primary  and  secondary, 

68,  216. 
Quick,  R.  H.,  6. 

Ramsay,  Professor  G.  G.,  179. 

Reasoning  backwards,  147  ff.,  214. 

Recall,  mediate  and  immediate,  63. 

Recepts,  14(5. 

Registration,  anthropometric,  22. 

Reid,  146. 

Ribot,  Th.,  32  n.,  46  n.,  252, 258. 

Richet,  30  n. 

Riddles,  208. 

Robinson    Crusoe,   errors    in,  223; 

old  picture  map,  233. 
Romanes,  146. 
Rousseau,  7,  81,  84, 174. 

Sachs,  Hans,  177. 
Scott,  Sir  W.,  1,  93. 
Self-expression,  278. 
Sikes,  model  lesson  by,  119. 
Socrates,  98. 


284 


THE  HEUBAKTJAN   PSYCHOLOGY 


Soul  diagrams,  220. 

Soul,  Herbart's  definition  of,  46,  84. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  27,  29,  34,  81  n., 

130,  133. 
Spurgeou, 266. 

Steiuthal,  Professor  H.,  64,  158. 
Stewart,  Dr.,  92. 
Stout,  G.  F.,  36,  55  n.,  64,  73,  244, 

249,256. 
Suggestion,  31. 
Sully,  Professor,  21, 161. 
Sympathy  of  numbers,  31. 

Temptation,  75. 
Thackeray,  100. 
Things  v.  words,  164. 
Thinking,  100  ff.;  in  block,  230. 
Threshold,  50;  dynamical  and  stati- 
cal, 62,  79. 
Thring,  255. 


Tolstoi,  Count,  2(>. 
Translation,  214. 
Tupper,  Martin,  35. 
Twain,  Mark,  186. 

Ufer,  Clir.,  273. 

Verification,  215. 
You  Kries,  212. 
Vorstellung,  49  n. 

Ward,  Professor,  77,  235,  275. 
Whipping  boy,  83. 
Will,  the  transcendental,  275. 
Words,  transitive  and  substantive, 

185. 

Wordsworth,  81,  188,  211. 
Wundt,  65  n.,  273  n. 

Zadig,  139. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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